Indiscretion (16 page)

Nellwyn stole a glance at Patrick. "She might have been put up to it. It does seem a peculiar thing to do."

He knelt down on the step in front of Anne. "Do you want me to take you home?"

She looked at him steadily. "Are we going to let a sausage scare us off a royal investigation?"

He smiled reluctantly. "Not when you put it that way."

25

A
nne, Patrick, and Nellwyn met for a midnight conference an hour
later in the blue drawing room.

In order not to arouse the suspicion of the other servants, who already thought Patrick took far too many liberties, he made a show of performing his nightly duties while the two women drank their tea. Actually it wa
sn't a show at all. He doubled-
checked every door and window in the lodge and wrote a complaint to the sheriff's deputy about the incident, even though the girl would probably never be found. Tomorrow he and Sandy would make a thorough search of the village and outlying area. His guess would be that the girl had fled to Glasgow or Aberdeen, a place where she would not easily be found, unless she was being sheltered by family. He blamed himself for not checking more deeply into her history.

"We cannot very well hold an intimate conversation with you halfway across the room," Nellwyn
complained from the sofa. "What on earth are you doing down there for so long, Sutherland?"

"Don't tell me you've found body parts in the fireplace," Anne said, still shaken from the message on the mirror.

"I was checking the grate." His voice sounded subdued.

"Are you going to stay in that peculiar position all night?" she asked.

"I just might."

She put down her cup. Something was wrong. His face was contorted in the fading light of the fire. "What is it?"

He gave a grimace that was a combination of pain and embarrassment. "I cannot get up. I appear to be stuck. My knee has locked."

"Stuck?" Nellwyn said. "A man in your superb condition?"

Anne shook her head. "That's what you get for brawling with young bucks at the fair."

He threw her a black look. He'd been a young buck not that long ago himself. "No. That's what I get for pretending to be a damned butler."

"Do you want us to help you up?" she said carefully.

He didn't answer. The two women came to the fireplace, but he waved them off, his pride injured as he got to his feet, limped a few steps, and stretched out on the wide sofa with his legs sprawled over the overstuffed arm.

"This job will be the death of me yet."

"Did you learn anything more about Janet?"
Nellwyn asked, unsympathetically plopping down beside him.

"Only that she disappeared with some silverware and a sizable sausage."

Anne squeezed down on the sofa beside Nellwyn, moving Patrick's legs to make a place for herself. "I still don't understand why a virtual stranger would want to threaten me away. Even if she was a thief, I have not done anything to offend her."

"Perhaps she sensed we were coming close to solving the mystery of Edgar's death," Nellwyn said.

Patrick sat up, frowning at this suggestion. "But we're not close, and why would a serving girl who had never been to the lodge before care anything about Uncle Edgar?"

A long pensive silence fell.

Nellwyn nodded thoughtfully. "My theory is the only one that makes sense. Someone paid the girl to write that message, and Flora is the obvious suspect."

"Flora
was
alone in the house for at least an hour after we left," Patrick said, looking at his aunt in approval.

"I cannot imagine a twit like Flora murdering Uncle Edgar," Anne said. "She goes into hysterics when she pricks her own finger."

"Perhaps she is protecting her father," Patrick said ominously. "Sir Wallace might be our man. Anne, I forbid you to see him again."

She fought a wave of fatigue. It had been an exhausting day, and she was in danger of falling asleep on the sofa beside the rogue. "Do not be
absurd." She closed her eyes. "David went to school with Wallace. He is not a killer."

"Perhaps Fl
ora wanted Anne gone for other reasons," Nellwyn speculated. "Perhaps she was enamored with Patrick and decided you were an obstacle, Anne."

"The woman cannot control the passion I arouse in her," Patrick mused, sounding pleased at the notion. "It is a plausible theory."

Anne opened her eyes. "No, it isn't. If I decided to leave, I would take my butler with me, wouldn't I?"

"Not necessarily," Nellwyn said. "You might leave him here with me at the lodge to take care of the needed repairs. Or perhaps she hoped to hire him away. We do know that the girl has no control over her behavior when it comes to men."

"She might be driven by impulse," Patrick said, folding his arms behind his head.

Anne flushed. "If Fl
ora is that determined to have you, I would not stand in her way. She has only to ask me.
"

He frowned. "I resent being referred to as a piece of property that can be passed from hand to hand. Furthermor
e, I find it easier to believe Fl
ora would lust after my body than dispose of a dead one in a boat."

"Typical male arrogance," Anne said.

"Poor Edgar," Nellwyn said. "Murdered in his prime."

"Edgar was almost eighty years old," Patrick said.

"Well, somebody does not want Anne in the lodge," Nellwyn said. "We did not imagine that message."

"I'm going to find her," Patrick said. "I'll leave early in the morning."

Anne sat up abr
uptly. "You're going to leave u
s alone?"

"Perhaps it's not a good idea," he conceded.

"It most certainly is not," Nellwyn said. "You belong here in this house at Anne's side. And we all belong in bed. We have a busy week ahead preparing for the party."

No one moved. Patrick pretended to close his eyes, studying Anne's silhouette in the darkness. She was the sweetest woman beneath the surface. He could not believe that anyone would want to frighten her. He leaned forward to touch her hand. "Nellwyn is right, you do need to go to bed."

Nellwyn took a final sip of her tea. "Who would not have been shocked, reading that message in one's own bloodied reflection?"

Anne looked at Patrick. "Do you know what part of the prediction comes next?"

"Our baby?" he said hopefully.

Nellwyn nearly dropped her cup on the carpet. "Do my ears deceive me? A baby? Now what—oh, I know I am a matchmaker par excellence, but this exceeds even my expectations. When is the little blessing due?"

Anne's eyes flashed. "It isn't."

"Probably sometime next September," Patrick said confidently, which of course meant that the conception had not yet occurred.

"September?" Nellwyn said in disappointment. "Well, at least I still have time to renovate the nursery."

"And find a nursemaid,"
Patrick added.
"I
would not have just anyone raising my child."

"Do you think she ought to go to London for her lying-in?" Nellwyn asked. "Have you decided on a name?"

"I favor Niall for a boy," Patrick said, rubbing his jaw. "Elizabeth is always nice for a girl, rather Biblical and royal, but Anne may venture an opin
ion.
"

"I am going to bed." Anne sprang to her feet. "Lord above, the pai
r of you will have this baby born
and christened before it has even been conceived."

"Have you given much thought to a college if it is a boy?" Nellwyn asked Patrick, completely in her element.

"I would not mind Edinburgh, if he shows an interest in medicine," Patrick said. "That way, we could spend some time together during the holidays."

Nellwyn looked up at Anne. "She doesn't show, does she?"

"Lord above!" Anne shouted. "I am not having this man's baby."

Patrick couldn't quite hide a smile at her denial of the inevitable, and Nellwyn gave him a knowing look, a woman of the world who had seen it all before.

"You shall have to get used to this sort of thing, I'm afraid," she said in a stage whisper. "Women tend to throw quite a few tantrums when they are in the family way. And you take her in hand about the horses, Patrick. She cannot go galloping into her
accouchement."
She paused, eyeing his broad frame with a worried frown. "You were a veritable monster when you were bo
rn
. I should guess this baby will be a wee devil to deliver."

P
atrick followed Anne out into the hallway and caught her arm. "Anne, wait. We meant no harm. We were only teasing."

She turned at the stairs, lifting her gaze to his. Shadows played across his bold features, giving a foreboding quality to his face. God had not been in a refined mood when he had created this man; he might have used granite to fashion the model. But even Anne could not mistake the genuine concern in his eyes.

God had slipped a streak of gentleness into the granite. Despite herself, she had to admit that the wildness in Patrick appeared to have been channeled if not conquered. And even though he had never meant to hurt her seven years ago or made any promises for the future, she had half hoped he would burst into the church to claim her as she gave herself in marriage to his cousin. But he hadn't, and now that he was here, asking her to overlook the past, she didn't know what to do.

"What is it, Patrick?"

"Should I walk you up to your room?"

"To protect me from the stalking sausage?"

"I wouldn't let anything hurt you, Anne."

"I'll be fine." She started up the stairs, then paused, smiling mischievously. "Shall I call you if I go into labor early?"

He began to follow her, chuckling softly.

"Patrick, I said I'd be fine by myself."

"You never know, Anne. That sausage could be waiting right arou
nd the corn
er."

She turned without warning, and found herself practically in his arms. "A butler's duty doesn't include putting his mistress to bed."

He leaned into her, lowering his lashes. "But we both know I'm so much more to her ladyship than a butler."

"You're not much of a butler, now that you mention it."

She stumbled down a step, caught off guard as he brushed his mouth against hers. "I want you so badly."

"Hmmm." She didn't respond, backing into the railing, but she was vulnerable, and she would not mind being held for a very short moment.

"Should I carry you upstairs?" he whispered, biting the edge of her ear.

"Don't be silly."

"Should I do this? I—"

For a moment she allowed him to kiss her, deeply, wetly, moaning as he wrapped his arms around her waist. His touch elicited needs inside her that hurt, and she felt herself floating, responding, her blood thickening. She was getting hot, and he sensed it, pressing his groin against her belly. His tongue
plundered her mouth like a gentl
e weapon, weakening her, staking his claim. Another minute of this, and he wouldn't have to work at seducing her—she would be tearing off his jacket and dragging him into her bed.

"Anne." He rubbed his face against hers. "Tell me what to do."

Blood was pounding in her ears, and this was not a good sign. David had never made her blood pound, and not once in almost five years of marriage had she considered tearing off his clothes for the pleasure of looking at his body.

"Will you stop following me?" she said, shaking off the spell.

"Will you have my baby?"

He looked so determined that she started to laugh, climbing a few steps to safety. "Oh, for heaven's sake."

He followed her anyway, even when she opened her door.

"Go. Go to your own room. Patrick, please. I promise I'll call you if I need you."

He stared at her for so long she was afraid she would relent. There was something inside her that hoped he would insist. "All right
,"
he said. "All right. I'll go to my room."

She laid her face against the door as he backed into the hall. "It isn'
t as if that message on the mir
ror threatened me in any physical way, Patrick."

He shook his head. "No. No. Sausage blood is a benign enough substance."

"And no one is liable to sneak into my room while I'm asleep either," she said as she closed the door in his face.

26

S
he took one look at the large figure looming between the bed curtains before she sat up in bed and screamed. She had been asleep for less than twenty minutes.

"Hell, woman," Patrick whispered, diving into bed beside her. "There is no need to scream like that. It's only me."

"I know," she said. "That's why I screamed."

He gave her a reproachful look. "And now everyone in the lodge will probably come running to see what frightened her ladyship into screaming bloody murder."

They both stared through the curtains at the door, awaiting Anne's rescuer. However, after four entire minutes had elapsed, it became evident that no one was coming to investigate her scream in any hurry. Nothing disturbed the heavy silence of the lodge.

"Well, isn't that reassuring?" he said, making himself more comfortable. "You could be lying dead for all anyone in this house pays attention."

"Everyone sleeps belowstairs except Nellwyn, who probably put you up to sneaking in here in the first place," she said testily. "Exactly what are you doing here at this hour?"

He rolled onto his elbow, his half-buttoned shirt revealing the rugged contours of his chest. "I heard a suspicious noise and jumped out of bed to investigate. Aren't you grateful I'm a light sleeper?"

"What noise?" she demanded.

He sat up slowly. "Listen."

She glanced toward the window. "That is the wind on the tree outside, Patrick. Did you think the branch was going to break inside, form a conspiracy with the sausage, and abduct me?"

"Stranger things have happened. This is Scotland, after all, land of devil dogs and body-snatchers."

"Get out of my bed."

"I can't," he said sheepishly.

"Why not?"

"Because Fergus is sleeping in
my
bed for the night. He appears to be coming down with a bad chest cold and Nellwyn said he needs to sleep in a warm bed with no damp air, and it's very damp belowstairs."

"Then go to sleep with him," she said unsympathetically. "You can keep him warm during the night, since you've developed this sudden maternal instinct."

He leaned over and tenderly brushed a strand of hair from her shoulders. "If he sees me sneaking back in from the closet, he'll think that you and I—"

"He's going to notice you aren't there anyway,"
she said. "Now sleep on the couch if you won't leave. I am in no mood for your nonsense."

Sleeping on the Grecian couch on the opposite side of the room
wasn't exactly what he had envi
sioned, but at least they were together, he knew that nothing would happen to her while he stayed here, and he could always hope she would change her mind and invite him to share her bed.

Of course, neither of them could sleep after that. There was enough tension in the air to generate a thunderstorm. Every sound seemed amplified, every creak ominous, and they both remembered the time when they had been together, those stolen hours of high sexual intensity.

They had been as intimate as any two people could dare to be in a single day, probably more intimate than many couples in a lifetime, and Patrick tortured himself with the memory of what a rare treasure he'd had in Anne and how stupid he had been not to realize it.

"
I
can't resist you. What have you done to me, Patrick."

She whispered the words in his ear while he lay on the stone floor and let the summer wind waft over their naked bodies. She was sweet and uninhibited and wild, and she had given herself, body and soul, to him without a second thought. Seducing her had been too easy, and it wasn't that he couldn't come to love her, he could, but at the time Patrick was not ready for marriage or commitment. He was shattered by his mother's death and angry
at the world. He resented the restrictions his father had imposed upon him; he was running on sheer instinct, running from his pain. He had never made Anne any promises about their future; but in the back of his mind he imagined they would be together when he settled down because she had chosen him. He didn't realize then that youthful hopes and promises rarely come to fruition. He didn't understand how determined her parents were to marry her off before she fell into disgrace.

"You're the prettiest girl I've ever met," he murmured. "What do you see in someone like me?"

"You have sadness in your eyes," she whispered shyly.

"Sadness?" He laughed. "You silly girl."

"I have to go, Patrick."

"Not yet."

He didn't like her riding alone across the moor. She was supposed to be visiting her ailing aunt and young cousin, reading the Bible, and being a dutiful niece, but she'd left the old woman dozing after seeing to her needs.

"I don't want to leave you," she whispered, wrapping her hip-length hair around his waist. "I'm going to bind you to me."

He groaned. The contact of her full breasts and belly against his naked body aroused him again, and he turned her on her back and thrust inside her, embedding himself so deeply that she gasped and went still.

It was a dangerous game. He knew he could end
up getting a child on her, and God help them both then. Her parents would kill him, and his own father could barely tolerate him as it was. But from the moment he'd seen Anne, he had wanted her beyond reason.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked in concern, withdrawing from her a few inches to study her face. The knob of his shaft pulsed against her slick flesh.

"No," she whispered.

"No?" He smiled, driving even deeper inside with the next thrust. "Good. Because I don't think I could stop even if you begged me."

Climaxing inside Anne, emptying himself in the depths of her delicate body, had been a primal and powerful experience. Even now he shook just recalling it, and there had never been another woman who had taken him to such a peak or who had left the mark on his soul as she had.

Even now, she was the only woman he could not forget.

As the memory faded, he groaned and turned onto his side, aching to touch her again. Anne had been such a sweet girl, so good, and he'd been so bad, deflowering her without a second thought, selfish in his sexual hunger. Why had he not stayed that summer? Why had he not seen beyond the obvious? Why could she not see what he was trying so hard to prove?

"Sutherland." Her voice snapped him out of his exercise in self-torture. "Would you kindly stop bumping back and forth on that couch? What
is
the matter with you?"

"You don't really want me to answer that question, Anne."

She sat up on her elbow. "Answer the question. You are thrashing about like a landed trout."

"If you really want to know, I was thinking about the time we made love."

"I'm sorry I asked," she said quietly,

"Aye. So am I."

There was a long spell of silence. Anne sank back down onto the bed and finally after another hour, she started to fall asleep only to hear Patrick drag a chair up to her side.

"Now what is it?" she said through her teeth.

He leaned over her, his expression earnest, "Well, you got me thinking about that gypsy's prediction again."

"I did?"

He nodded. "It's true I don't put much stock in superstition, but one doesn't want to take a chance where one's loved one is concerned, does one?"

"Are you staring at my breasts again?"

"I'
m sorry." He raised his unapologetic gaze to hers. "I was thinking about the next part of the prediction."

"That isn't what it looks like you were thinking about," she said.

"Are you going to keep interrupting me with your suspicions about my sexual fantasies?" He leaned down even lower. "Unless it's
your
secret fantasies we're really talking about, in which case, I'm all ears."

She snorted rudely.

He drew back, arching his brow. "As I was saying—"

"Do you think a stag is actually going to attack me in bed? That an enormous beast is going to come lumbering across the courtyard, up the stairs and impale me where I lay?"

"Only if he's trying to get a word in edgewise," he said in annoyance. "I am trying to make a point."

"Which is?" she said, tapping her fingers on the quilt. "It's only four o'clock or so in the morning."

"The point," he said irately, "is that a prediction does not have to be taken literally. Omens and such are open to interpretation. The stag could be a heraldic device on someone's shield. Your enemy could be hiding behind a mask of aristocracy."

"You're starting to sound cracked, Sutherland." She thumped onto her side. "And I can feel you staring at my backside."

He grinned, not even bothering to deny it.

She pulled the quilt up and pretended to fall asleep, peeling open one eye to watch him walk across the room.

"What are you doing now?" she asked in exasperation.

"I'm looking in the mirror."

She vaulted out of bed. "Is there another message?"

"No. There is, however, a thick coating of dust. You notice these things when you're in domestic employment. I am going to have to talk to Gracie about it in the morning."

She jumped out of bed and marched up behind him. "Dust? You're looking in the damned mirror for dust when I have to get up in a few hours to survey the forest?"

He squinted. "No. I was looking at my black eye when the dust distracted me. My eyelid is starting to swell shut. Don't worry about it, though. It's only a bruise. It'll have gone down before the shooting party—"

"Don't be such a martyr, Patrick. Let me see it."

"Go back to bed, Anne. It's nothing."

She stood on tiptoe to touch his eyelid. "Everyone will think my butler is a blackguard."

He suppressed a shudder as her fingers brushed his face. "Which he is. At least you seem to think so."

Their bodies were barely touching, but memories of what they had shared magnetized them. Anne fell back a step in self-defense, trying to break the connection.

"I have to ride out early to survey the forest for the shooting," she said quietly. "We'll probably have to re
move a few blasted pines from th
e bridle path."

"I'll go with you," he said, staring at her as she returned to her bed alone.

"No. You have to look for Janet."

"Then I'll make Fergus and Allan go with you."

"Don't you dare."

But he would; they both knew it, so Anne didn't bother to argue further, and they spent the rest of the night apart, lonely and aching, until the ferocious roar of a stag in heat awakened them as dawn broke over the hills.