Indiscretion (2 page)

"No, Patrick. I appreciate your part in my ruination. Now kindly move out of the way. You've done enough damage to my reputation, thank you."

"I couldn't have done that much damage," he pointed out, "or you'd never have been invited to court."

"Perhaps that's why I've been invited." A note of panic crept into her voice. "Perhaps the Queen found out about us and is going to banish me from her presence forevermore."

"That is entirely unlikely, sweetheart. Ever since her visit to Scotland last year, we Highlanders are all the rage. I suspect we're about to be invited to be part of some Gaelic spectacle."

She narrowed her eyes. "Are you behind this?"

"Don't be insulting, woman." He held out his arm. "Come on. We'll present a united and dignified Highland front if only for appearances. You can thrust the ancestral dirk into my heart afterward."

"Dignified, I agree to." She stepped toward the antechamber door, refusing his arm. "But I have a feeling I'd be safer united with Mephistopheles than with you again."

He laughed quietly. "Oh, Anne."

She arched her brow. "Oh, Anne, what? Or shouldn't I ask?"

"It is good to see you again."

She sighed. "I cannot say I return the sentiment."

2

S
he buried her hands in her skirts so he wouldn't know how badly they were shaking, but perhaps it was a futile gesture. Tiny shudders of reaction coursed through her body like electrical impulses.
Him.
Him. It was too much to believe they had both been brought here by coincidence. What could it possibly mean?

She caught a glimpse of herself in the beveled mirror on the antechamber wall, her face as white as a shroud, and Patrick, on a furlough from Hades, directly behind her. The image of him should have shocked her, the straight black hair and blue eyes, the clefted chin, but strangely it did not. He had always been a shadow at her side, part of her that would not go away, despite all her efforts to pretend that that episode in her life, that impulsive, poignant, sexual interlude, had not existed.

The last time she had seen their joined reflections had been in a crystal pool below a Highland waterfa
l
l where they had washed after making love. But even then they hadn't been able to keep their hands off each other, and she could still see his strong nude body; she could remember the power in his arms and the heat that flooded her belly as he took her where they stood.

She had been so shameless, so enamored with him, submitting to his seduction. Every time he thrust into her, she had surrendered a tiny piece of herself. There hadn't been much left to give to her husband on her wedding night, although David had been so happy to have her, he had pretended not to notice his wife's unmaidenly state.

"Sit down, Anne," Patrick murmured. "You're about to face the Queen, not the firing squad."

It was his voice that brought her back to the present, that lulling voice, that jolted her out of her thoughts. And what had she been thinking about—her affair with the scoundrel, of all things. Less than three minutes in his company, and she'd opened up a Pandora's box of sin, desire, and heaven only
k
new what else would fly out in her face before she could slam the lid shut.

She wasn't thinking of how to please her morally minded sovereign. She was remembering the pleasure she had shared with the most shameless man in Scotland.

"What is the matter with you, Anne?"

His voice again. She tried to focus on his face—no, that wasn't a good idea. She was embarrassed, flustered, remembering what they had shared, and despite what she pretended, she could not find it in
her heart to blame him entirely for their bittersweet encounter. Still, the sight of him reminded her of a time when she had been so confused and unhappy.

"What do you think is the matter with me?"

"I don't know." There was genuine concern in his tone. "You look deathly pale—you aren't going faint on me, are you?"

"Not if the floor is available." She released a sigh. "Why has she summoned us all the way here? It can't be for any good purpose."

"Why not?" he asked, starting to feel dizzy from watching her walk back and forth in front of the door.

"Because you're involved, that's why."

"I wish you'd stop giving me so many compliments," he said wryly. "I might get the impression you harbor a certain tenderness for me."

"Where on earth would you get an idea like that?"

He leaned up against the mantelpiece, arms folded across the hard plane of his chest. He was a well-built man, lean and powerful. That much hadn't changed, and for a moment she was so awed by his physical presence, of how incongruous he looked in a royal antechamber, that she almost missed his next outrageous remark.

"I will not be dishonest with you, Anne
. I find you more attractive tha
n I did seven years ago."

The words barely sank in before she could feel herself start to shake again. "Are you—" she gave an incredulous hoot of laughter, "—you're actually trying to lure me back into your bed with the Queen about to be announced at any instant?"

He gave her an indulgent look. "Actually, I had something more involved in mind than a few feverish moments."

"Indeed." She froze, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. "Oh, that is so amusing, but at least it answers one question."

"What question is that, my wee witch?" he asked quietly, his blue eyes brooding.

She gritted her teeth, refusing to respond to the nickname he had whispered in her ear when they had made love. Witchcraft, aye, that's what it had been.

Sometimes when she looked back on her mistake with Patrick, she thought she must have been under a spell. There was no other explanation for her behavior and wil
lful disobedience that entire su
mmer. Her parents had pulled their hair in frustration at her strange moods and wild rides across the moor before marrying her off in exasperation. Her aunt had prayed aloud for her salvation. Everyone said she was possessed, doomed, and on the path to hell when in reality she had been only an unhappy girl with a mind of her own. In the Highlands, some people would say Patrick had cast a glamour over her, a bewitchment, and even now she could believe it. She hadn't met anyone like him since.

But she had broken the spell, hadn't she? She had married a sweet, upstanding man and had settled into respectability. She had paid penance with wifely obedience and the suppression of her true self. The glamour couldn't last forever, could it? It
was just that he had caught her off guard again. She was shaking from head to toe because he had surprised her, appearing unexpectedly at Windsor Castle. She had always managed to maintain a semblance of control at their other accidental meetings.

But then David had always been at her side, the dependable husband, a charm against evil, an unknowing talisman against temptation.

Temptation.

She cl
osed her eyes. If Patrick so much as breathed on her, if she even look
ed too deeply into his eyes…
if he touched her, well, she didn't know what she would do. He might possibly stir up the settled ashes and find a few embers still smoldering from their affair, and all hell would break loose.

"What question, Anne?" he said again.

"Where you spent the last year," she said, shaking off the unwelcome memories.
"It was obviously in a lunatic
asylum."

"How did you guess?"

"They probably have your cage waiting for you in the institution," she said.

"Do you still like to be kissed behind the knees?" he countered, teasing her back.

Before she could react, an interior door painted in gold opened and two footmen appeared, oblivious to the thunderstorm brewing under their very noses. "Her Majesty will
see you now. Come this way, please."

"I don't trust you," Anne whispered as Patrick waited politely for her to proceed him. "I think you're nothing but trouble, and I shall do my utmost to avoid you."

3

S
he was too upset to appreciate the significance of being ushered into the Queen's private sitting room. She caught a dazzling impression of gilt everywhere, and a case of Sevres ornaments opposite a carved fairy-tale cradle that sat beside the Queen's armchair. Her Majesty had given birth to a princess only a few months earlier.

Anne had not been to court since David had died. Even before then her appearances had been sporadic. She and David had preferred their quiet life in Hampshire, far away from London or from the Highlands where a handsome rogue had seduced her. She had needed solitude to ponder her life, her wild impulses, and solitude had suited her well.

She had never felt for Patrick's very proper, very British cousin, the Baron of Whitehaven, the same reckless passion she had felt for him. She would never abandon herself so foolishly like that again, but she had come to feel a kind of love for David,
and they had enjoyed a peaceful life together. At the least she would always be grateful to him for rescuing her from her parents and the odious assortment of suitors they had considered to take her off their hands. David had given her shelter and security, and the freedom she needed to indulge her passion for horses.

"Lady Whitehaven," she heard the Queen say, "how good it is to see you again."

She felt herself go through the motions of a curtsy and a proper response; one did not initiate conversation, the Queen did. She followed protocol, but her mind was focused on something else.

The Queen turned her attention to Patrick, and Anne stared at the cradle, thinking of the child she had lost to a miscarriage early in her marriage. It was for David that she had kept up her connections at court. Appearances had meant so much to him, and he had been kind, but he hadn't exactly left his widow financially prepared. Money had trickled out of his hands like water. He'd lent to anyone who asked him, and Anne found she would have to struggle to afford a modest lifestyle. Family obligations also had their price. The cost to keep her ailing aunt sheltered and to maintain her own small stables rose every year. She hoped to sell her Berkeley Square residence before winter.

The low murmur of Patrick's voice sent a shiver of anxiety down her spine. Sometimes she still dreamed of him. Sometimes she still woke up with a pounding heart, reliving the moment when she had cast propriety aside to be with him
.
All her
upbringing, all common sense had abandoned her, and
sh
e was shocked at what they had done. For months afterward she had been so numb, pretending she felt nothing but resentment for him; in f
ac
t, he was the only man she had ever been attracted to in her life. And marrying him had been out of the question—her parents would flay her alive before giving her to such a rogue.

She took a slow breath. By the time Patrick had left Scotland, she had resigned herself to her mistake and married another man, her short-lived affair swept under the carpet and her heart so bruised, she could barely smile.

His reappearance in her life could only signify the worst sort of trouble.

Queen Victoria had not summoned them here to exchange pleasantries. Had the scandal of their fleeting association become known? Would they be censured, banished, forced to explain? As far as Anne knew, no other living soul was aware of what they had done.

She stared at the cradle and thought of all the children she would never have; she had no wish to be entrapped in marriage in the near future. She thought of the man standing next to her, and she could feel the heat of his body stealing into her skin. Seven years had carved interesting lines in his face. His complexion was dark, from recent travels to some exotic land, and Anne remembered David mentioning that Patrick had entered some kind of foreign trade, but Anne had not questioned him on the subject. She had not dared give her secret away
by revealing any interest whatsoever in Patrick.

"Lord Glengramach," the Queen said warmly. "The trade winds obviously agree with you. Does your fellow Highlander not cut a dashing figure, Anne?"

She fought a wave of light-headedness. She
doesn’t know
—she caught the look Patrick threw her.
"I
…
I really hadn't noticed, Your Royal Highness
."

"Not noticed?" The Queen's round face took on a faintly surprised expression. Victoria might be high-minded, but she
was young, and it was a well-
known fact that she appreciated a fine specimen of manliness, especially if that specimen was a Scot, a people she had recently come to admire for their wry humor and honesty.

"But he is a hero, Anne. Have you not heard that he almost gave his life in our defense in Bermuda?"

Anne had heard, all right. In fact, three years ago, when Patrick had returned from Bermuda suffering from a fever, she had rushed to his side at his father's house, abandoning her husband and friends. It had been the height of madness to visit him, but she'd thought he was dying, and she had wanted to see him one last time, perhaps to prove to herself that what they had shared was well and truly dead. It had been her only foolish lapse since their indiscretion; she'd barely spoken to him after that, and her unsuspecting husband had actually commended her kindness. Yet in an odd way Patrick was family. By marrying his cousin, she had made them both a part of her life.

"I have heard of his bravery, ma'am," she said in a polite but detached voice.

The Queen motioned them both to sit before her, leaning forward to speak. "I have embarrassed her, Lord Glengramach, and that is perfectly proper. You are distantly related to each other, are you not?"

"Lady Whitehaven was married to my second cousin, who died two years ago, Your Royal Highness," Patrick answered, arching his brow at the way Anne sat on the opposite end of the gilt sofa to avoid touching him.

"You have the most unusual blue eyes," the Queen told him unexpectedly. "So like my dear husband's, the eyes of an angel."

An angel? Anne all but let out a roar of outrage. If only the Queen knew—but Anne could never reveal his true nature without revealing her own. Patrick was the darkest angel to disgrace heaven's door.

He turned to look at her. "Are you choking, Lady Whitehaven?" he inquired, so concerned she could have killed him.

"Perhaps she needs a light tap on the back," the Queen suggested.

A devilish light glowed in his eyes. "Shall I tap you, Lady Whitehaven? I'm good with my hands."

"I
…
I—"

I'm good with my hands, Anne.

You're good with everything, you devil.

Aye, I know. Open your legs wider. I don't think you screamed loud enough when you came the first time.

"Keep your hands to yourself," she blurted out.

The Queen gave her a quizzical look. "Is something amiss?"

Anne felt Patrick gazing at her in amusement. The man had seen her naked. She swore that even now those blue eyes of his could look through not only her clothes but through seven years of propriety and hiding secrets and overcoming. He saw straight inside her as if taunting that reckless girl he had ruined to respond to him.

The reckless girl in Anne had been brought under control a long time ago.

"I had a
…
cramp in my back, ma'am," she said, pressing against the hard-backed sofa.

The Queen was full of sympathy. "It's the furniture, so undersprung, and the plumbing system is even worse. I vow I cannot wait until work is begun on the new residence. You must visit, and perhaps return the favor by having us at Balgeldie House some autumn for a shooting party."

A servant in livery brought in tea with creamcakes on a silver platter. Anne should have been honored by the gesture, but she braced herself for the worst. Perhaps the Queen was going to suggest that she retire permanently to her isolated Scottish lodge where her sinful character could die a natural death.

"The hunting lodge does still belong to you?" the Queen asked.

"Well, yes. The family uses it infrequently." She cast a sidelong glance at Patrick, who looked uncomfortable on the delicate sofa. Uncomfortable, but not particularly worried, as he followed the Queen's example by helping himself to a cake. Anne took a tiny nibble of her own pastry, swallowing without tasting it.

Devil that he was, he would never have revealed their past indiscretion, or would he? The cruel fact was that even if the Queen had learned the two of them had been lovers, it was only Anne, the woman, who would bear the stigma.

Patrick, on the other hand, would receive a halfhearted scolding in this age of double standards. Then he would go on his merry way ruining maidens in private, or whatever he set his dark heart to these days.

"My friends inform me you have sponsored the building of another grammar school in the Highlands," the Queen said to Patrick. "How proud you must be."

"It was the least I could do with the profits from my investments," he said modestly.

Anne rolled her eyes.

The Queen put down her plate. She regarded them both in absolute silence. "I am afraid I have misled you. I have not called you here to discuss something as pleasant as a holiday in the Highlands or the construction of a grammar school. A far more serious affair brings us together."

"Oh," Anne said, her voice breaking. "Oh, dear."

Patrick stretched forward on the pretense of putting his plate on the table. "Straight face, Anne," he said to her in an undertone.

The Queen released a sigh. "You are aware that the husband of one of my former ladies-in-waiting has met a rather strange death in the Highlands?"

Anne frowned. "Strange death?"

"I am referring to Lord Kingaim," the Queen said,
frowning back at Anne. "Surely you remember your own uncle's death in your lodge?"

"My uncle?" Anne said, feeling like an idiot.

Patrick cleared his throat. "Uncle Edgar."

"Isn't he
your
uncle?" Anne said under her breath.

"I don't think so," Patrick answered. "I thought he was David's uncle."

"Perhaps he is," Ann
e said. "Or at least his great-
uncle, ma'am."

The Queen arched her brow. "At any rate, he was a member of your family, and his death has plunged poor Lady Kingaim into the depths of unhappiness."

"I do remember now, ma'am,"
Anne said, suddenly able to breathe again. "I was not in Scotland at the time of the sad incident."

"The circumstances of Lord Kingaim's death have raised certain unfortunate questions," the
Queen continued. "Certain…
rumors, which I shall not repeat."

"Do you mean the rumor that he was found nude and spread-eagled on a burial cairn with strange markings on his body, ma'am?" Patrick said.

Anne gasped.

The Queen gave him a look. "Thank you for your blunt honesty. It is what I admire most about the Scottish temperament. I am happy to report, however, that such an atrocious rumor is entirely unfounded. There is not a whit of truth to it."

"I should hope so," Anne said in a choked voice.

"Lord Kingaim died of an apparent heart seizure,"
th
e Queen added. "It saddens me to say that a few disturbing questions continue to circulate about the events of that tragic evening."

"I had not heard the details of his death," Anne said worriedly.

"Your good husband understandably did not wish to upset you," the Queen said. "However, gossip is a most dangerous thing. I cannot allow these rumors to continue upsetting my friends."

"Of course not, ma'am," Anne said.

Patrick nodded. "Nip 'em right in the bud, I always say."

"And that is why I have summoned you here," the Queen said.

Anne could barely contain her relief. "I shall immediately begin a correspondence to Balgeldie House instructing all of my staff and neighbors to stop discussing the subject."

Patrick hadn't moved; Anne sensed he might not be completely satisfied with the Queen's explanation. If she hadn't been so giddy with relief, she might also have questioned the frown that marred Victoria's broad forehead.

"There is a little more to the matter, I am afraid," the Queen said delicately. "I wish you to travel to the very source of our trouble and put out these flames of scandal in person."

"Together?" Patrick said, leaning forward so abruptly he almost overturned the tea table.

"The details I will leave to my dear friend and adviser," Victoria said, purposely not elaborating.

"But, ma'am, surely it is not necessary that I take
Lord Glengramach from his charitable duties to accompany me?" Anne asked.

Victoria hesitated. "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. The suggestion of foul play has been raised in your uncle's death."

"Murder?" Patrick said, his knee jarring the table.

"I can certainly manage to squelch a few rumors myself," Anne said, struggling to sit forward. "After all, Uncle Edgar expired on my estate, and the suggestion of foul play seems so unlikely."