Indiscretion (21 page)

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H
e glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner. Everything was ready. The horse saddled for him in the stable. The rowboat. Iain's disguise. His plan should go off without any problems. However, Patrick was a man who had learned to leave nothing to chance. He intended to sneak away from the ballroom early on to make sure all his preparations were in place at the loch. The only problem was that he didn't wish to leave Anne alone with Sir Wallace. It seemed he would have to engage Auntie Nellwyn's help again, which meant she would insist on knowing what he was going to do. He would have included Anne in his plans, but he knew she would disapprove and try to stop him.

He made his way into the hallway, deep in thought.

If he rode hard, he should be able to return in time to serve hot toddies and hazelnut torte like a good butler an hour before the fishing party.

He might even be able to steal a few minutes alone with Anne before Lord Kingaim rose from the dead to identify his killer.

33

A
nne could not quite shake the feeling that the evening would end in disaster.
Apprehension over
shadowed her
as she excused herself from the party to make a final inspection of the ballroom.

Frosted globe gaslights shone on the flocked wallpaper alongside the iron wall sconces. Four bronze girandoles blazed on marble pedestals in the co
rn
ers, their glow lost in the brightness of the chandelier. The targes and swords above the fireplace had been draped in tartan, the moth-eaten stag's heads had been removed. No thunderbolts should strike her guests as they danced and drank.

Everything was as it should be. Yet her anxiety persisted, her hands felt like ice; she began to pace without even realizing it, some animal instinct putting her on the alert.

When she heard footsteps behind her, she gave a violent start and turned, her taffeta skirts rustling.

"I did not mean to frighten you, Anne," Sir Wallace said. He looked grave and distinguished in his tweed jacket and gray
cl
oth trousers. "Are we alone?"

"I believe so. Is something wrong?"

He hesitated. "I have to make a confession."

"Oh, dear." She stepped back against
on
e of the Windsor chairs that lined the wall.
"
This sounds terribly serious."

He put his hand to his vest pocket. "Anne, I—"

The door to the ballroom opened with such force that the flames in the girandoles leaped toward the ceiling. A broad-shouldered giant in a kilt towered before them.

"You rang for assistance, madam?" Patrick asked in the coldest voice Anne had ever heard.

"Of course she didn't ring, you insolent man," Sir Wallace said when he recovered. "Do you even see a bell pull in this room?"

Patrick skewered him with a look. "It is not my jo
b to find the damned bells, sir.
Only to answer them."

"We wish to be alone," Sir Wallace stated.

Patrick took a step forward, staring down at Anne with deadly calm. "Is that true, madam? You wish me to leave you alone with this walrus?"

She lifted her hand to her temple. She had an awful feeling that if she said yes, Sir Wallace would not leave the ballroom in one piece. "We'll talk later, Wallace. I believe I hear the pipers climbing the stairs to the gallery."

"Very good, madam." Patrick's heavy-lidded gaze
assured her that she had made the right decision.
"Do ring me again if you need anything else."

H
er sense of dread persisted. Her heart pounded as she moved among her guests; sipping a glass of madeira only intensified the tension between her temples.

"What do you think Sir Wallace meant to tell me?" she whispered to Nellwyn as they stood watching a lively Highland reel unfold on the dance floor.

"Perhaps he meant to make you an indecent proposal," Nellwyn replied.

Anne gave her a look. "He mentioned a confession."

"The murder confession?" Nellwyn perked up at the thought.

"I'll probably never know because your nephew came barreling between us with his usual bad manners before Wallace could say another word."

Nellwyn didn't respond. Both women had just looked through the terrace doors to glimpse Patrick hurrying past the fountain in the garden. Lamplight silhouetted his tall form. "Lord above, don't tell me that's a pistol in his hand," Anne whispered in horror. "What does the man intend to do?"

Nellwyn shook her head. "I can't tell you. I'd like to, but I'm sworn to secrecy."

"What do you mean, you can't tell me?" Anne said in disbelief. "Do you actually know what he's planned for tonight?"

"Not only do I know, but as of
five
minutes ago I
have become an integral part of his plan," Nellwyn said. "My lips are sealed, however, and if I told you, you would probably go into hysterics and spoil everything."

She grasped the woman's wrist. "Tell me this instant, Auntie Nellwyn, or I'll—"

"It'
s a lovely party, Anne," someone trilled behind them as a small group of guests converged on their hostess.

"I think I see my old friend Lady Finley," Nellwyn said, sneaking away from Anne. "I should ask how the dear old tiling is keeping."

Anne clenched her teeth, unable to escape her guests to follow the older woman. When she finally broke free, the musicians were playing a waltz and Nellwyn had disappeared. She almost screamed aloud as a strong arm reached out from an alcove and ensnared her.

"I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of dancing with you, Anne."

She stared up into Patrick's darkly handsome face; her emotions were in such an uproar she didn't really care that he was guiding her out onto the terrace.

"Lord knows we've done everything else," she blurted out.

He grinned, his arm clamped around her waist to keep her from moving away. "Almost. Just dance with me a spell. I don't have long."

"Dance with you?" she said, her voice rising.

Guests were beginning to look at them through the partially opened doors. Gracie watched them in
white-
faced shock from the bedroom window where she was supervising the undermaids. The mistress and Sutherland dancing together in the garden? It couldn't be.

"I can just ima
gine what everyone is thinking,"
Anne said indignantly. " 'She's dancing with the butler. Has the woman totally lost her mind?'
"

He whisked her down the terrace stairs. "How do you know they're not saying, 'Look what a lovely couple they make?' And, 'Isn't he graceful for a giant?'
"

She laughed, not wanting to, but he was so arrogant and outrageous, and whenever they were together, she came alive, and she loved the feeling. "We are committing a social sin, Sutherland."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time." He paused and gripped her hand, bringing it right to his heart. "There—that's something, a point for my side. I've made you laugh."

"You made me cry hard enough," she said, turning her face away from what she saw in his eyes.

"And cry," he conceded. "I've made us both cry, but does that mean I'll have to pay forever? Haven't I proven my devotion yet?"

She stared out into the garden, her voice almost inaudible. "I can't say."

"Then kiss me and I shall know the answer
.
"

"Kiss you—a butler—in front of everyone?"

"Then I'll know."

"Silly man," she said, laying her face against their interlocked hands.

"Anne," he said, holding her so tightly that she
couldn't move. "How was I to know that not staying that summer was the biggest mistake of my life?"

Lightning flashed over the distant mountains, and Anne thought of the legends of the storm witches and wizards who dueled for supremacy from their supernatural abodes.

She too was fighting, not for power or to save the world, but to save her very human heart, which she feared had not belonged to her from the day she'd met this man.

"I'll make it up to you for the rest of our lives." His voice was muffled as he buried his face in her hair. "Do you remember what I promised you in London? When people talk about us, they'll say, 'No ma
n has ever made a woman happier,'
And, 'Isn't it wonderful she had the good sense to marry her butler?'
"

"For God's sake," she said, laughing again.

"After a few months, you won't even remember the confused boy who took advantage of a pretty girl who was the only one in the world to make him believe in himself. Give me another chance, that's all I ask."

He had guided her out into the heart of the garden, past where the lantern lights reached, and she could barely hear the strains of the music from the ballroom, but it didn't matter. They were moving to their own private rhythm, a dance that was close and sexual and fraught with a danger she knew only too well, but she didn't have it in her to fight him anymore. She had always belonged to
Patrick. And, clever, clever man, he had told her everything she had waited so long to hear. Except that she wished it could have come seven years earlier, when she was open and spontaneous.

She raised her face to his. "Are you telling me that a heart can be healed by the person who broke it?"

He stared down at her, and she sensed he was struggling to find the words. "I hope so, Anne. You broke my heart when you married David, and unlike you, I am not prepared to live my life in this much pain."

She felt light-headed and happy, held a prisoner in his arms. "I don't know. I need more time to adjust to everything."

"Your period of mourning is officially over," he said, refusing to show her any mercy, "and Nellwyn is right. Life is short."

They stopped dancing and stood together for several moments, watching the silver-blue streaks of lightning in the distance.

Anne said, "I hope the storm doesn't move down here. It will ruin the fishing tonight on the loch if it does."

"I want to have children with you," he said. "I want to enjoy my sons and daughters before my housemaid's knee gets any worse."

She had wanted to have his children once too. Stupid girl that she was, she'd half hoped he had gotten her pregnant that bittersweet summer so he could rescue her from an arranged marriage.

But Patrick had rebelled against the conventional; he had infuriated his father with his refusal to conform, and in the end her fairy-tale dreams had died a painful death.

"Patrick—"

"You don't have to say anything now. But don't send me away."

She
cl
osed her eyes. She didn't want to cry. She
wasn't
going to cry. "Wouldn't I be a fool to believe you?"

He rubbed his cheek in her hair. "You would be a fool not to believe me. I'll take such good care of you if you allow me."

Somehow she found the strength to break away from him, needing time to think. "It's my guests you should be taking care of. Honestly, if any of this gets back to the Queen, I shall never be able to explain it."

"You're absolutely right." He backed away from her, pain and disappointment etched on his face. She hadn't given him the answer he wanted, and finally he was forced to face the fact that perhaps she never would. Perhaps she would continue to push him away, punishing them both for a past mistake, and in the end they would slip back into lonely and separate lives.

He managed a droll smile. "It would serve you right, however, if I decided to remain your butler."

She tried to smile back; she felt cold and unbearably empty without his arms around her, but that was a feeling she knew too well. "We ought to go back inside," she murmured. "We're almost to the bottom of the garden."

He took a few steps toward the gate. "Go ahead. I have something to do first."

Suddenly she remembered the pistol she had seen in his hand, and her anxiety returned with the impact of an arrow. "Where are you going? I know you have a gun. Nellwyn and I saw you on the terrace. What are you planning to do, Patrick?"

He walked to the gate, answering her over his shoulder. "I'll be back in time to serve the whiskey toddies. Fergus is going to take my place at the party until then. Think about what I said, Anne. I expect your decision tonight."

34

P
atrick tethered his horse in the trees and walked to the boathouse on the hill above the loch. He had visited the loch several times in the past week, but it wasn't until yesterday morning that he had connected the boathouse to his uncle's death, and even now he could not be certain his hunch would prove correct.

It was an isolated spot for two lovers to meet, and Patrick and Anne had taken advantage of such a place themselves. The boathouse also wasn't far off the bridle path, for fast access through the woods to the road, or to the loch.

A dead body could be dragged down the hill and put into a rowboat in a matter of minutes. The ruse wouldn't take much planning or muscle. A woman could accomplish the deed alone if she had enough motivation. A year had passed so there wasn't any point in looking for tracks. Patrick didn't even know what he expected to find in the boathouse, or
what he would do with any evidence, but the fact was that he was committed to uncovering the truth, and that meant he had to deal with whatever he discovered.

The boathouse was dark and unwelcoming; the flashes of faraway lightning didn't begin to penetrate the gloom of the trees that overshadowed it. The single room smelled of damp and mouse droppings. With distaste, he lit a candle and examined the musty heather-tick mattress on the dirt floor. He wasn't really surprised when he found several strands of long red hair adhering to the woolen fibers.

"Well," he said aloud, crouching in the dark, "that gives me a good idea what my uncle was doing before he died and who he was doing it with, but it doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to do with the information."

It didn't prove Flora had murdered Edgar either, at least it wasn't evidence enough to sway a Scottish jury. The most any prosecutor could hope for in such a case was a Not Proven verdict, which was neither a conviction of guilt or a statement of innocence.

"Damnation," he muttered. "The Queen is really going to hate—"

He wasn't sure what he noticed first, the low
-
voiced chanting outside or the explosion of flames at his feet, followed by a spray of dirt that hit him in the face. Something thumped rhythmically against t
h
e door.

"What the hell?" he said, lifting his head. It
appeared that some deranged creature was nailing the door shut in order to roast him alive.

He jumped up to stamp out the fire, straining his sore knee in the process. The boathouse erupted in flames that leaped up toward the turf-and-mud roof, and as he struggled to breathe, he realized his assailant must have doused the flimsy exterior in pitch oil, or some other flammable substance. Coughing, he pulled the plaid from the bed and covered his face before he threw himself against the door.

He broke free just as a cloaked figure disappeared through the trees; his attacker had done a terrible job of nailing the door shut. In fact, a flea could have pushed its way outside.

He didn't bother giving chase; he still had the second part of his plan to unfold, and he could hear footsteps shuffling in the underbrush behind him.

It was Sandy, who gawked at the smoking boathouse in disbelief before joining Patrick in his efforts to extinguish the fire. The structure lay in ruins, no more than a stack of turf and twigs to begin with, and its charred remains sketched an eerie tableau on the hillside against the background of bare trees.

"What are you doing here?" Patrick asked in a grim voice, wiping his face with the plaid.

Sandy blinked. "I ought to ask you the same thing. Mrs. Forbes was worried about you and sent me out on a search. She knew you'd taken a flintlock pistol from the pantry. 'Tweren't hard to find you with them flames. Were you sneaking a smoke?"

"Indeed, I was not," Patrick replied. "You didn't happen to recognize the person running away into the woods when you arrived?"

Sandy looked frightened. "God Almighty," he said under his breath. "Do you mean to say someone wanted you dead?"

"I don't think my assailant meant to relight my candle."

Sandy leaned on his staff, staring through the smoke to the trees. "What have you done to deserve this, Sutherland?"

"It isn't what I've done," Patrick said. "It appears to be what I know. However, I cannot afford the time for a detailed explanation. I have something to do at the loch before I return to the house. Help me to clean up this mess before I go, and reassure Mrs. Forbes I am fine."

Sandy studied Patrick's black-streaked face. "If you say so, lad."