Indiscretion (22 page)

35

A
nne paced on the path at the bottom of the garden. She was so on edge, she jumped every time she saw a glimmer of lightning in the distance. The storm was miles away. It wouldn't move down from the mountains for a day, if at all, but its dark energy had chilled the air, and she couldn't help thinking that it portended something evil.

Her heartbeat accelerated as she spotted Patrick shove open the garden gate, pausing to stare at her from the same spot where they had parted.

Grimly he walked through the shadows, releasing a profound sigh of relief when she stepped into view. Without a word, he gathered her into his arms and pressed her against his chest, absorbing her into the heat of his body, reassuring her with his presence. He was back. He was safe. They were together. He hadn't disappeared from her life this time—she was only fleetingly aware of that fear lurking behind her more logical thoughts.

She savored the bittersweet feelings that flooded her. Then she tilted back her head and examined his face, frowning at the streaks of dirt and ash. Her voice caught. "I don't think I want to know where you have been or what you've been doing."

He smiled, but she noticed that his facial muscles didn't relax. "You probably don't."

"Is it all over?"

"I'm afraid not." He held her close, frowning because she was standing outside without a wrap. Her skin felt chilled, or perhaps he was still overheated from his brush with the fire. "Did anyone return to the party in a disheveled state?"

"I wouldn't have noticed," she said, angry again now. "I've been too worried about you."

"What about Sir Wallace?"

"The poor man has been standing on the terrace, searching for me since I left the ballroom," she said.
"I hid from him in the garden. As far as I know, he hasn't left the house."

"Good girl. What about Flora—did she behave in a peculiar manner at all?"

"With Flora it's hard to tell," she replied. "But I couldn't answer. I haven't dared to show my face in the house since you left. No doubt everyone thinks I've lost my mind after dancing in the garden with a domestic. It is rather embarrassing to have the neighborhood aware I'm carrying on with my butler."

"But what a butler he is."

"You ought to ask Nellwyn about Flora's behavior," she said.

He glanced up at the house. "If Nellwyn is following my orders, she's upstairs at this very moment applying cosmetics to a corpse."

She gasped. "What?"

"Not a real corpse, Anne. It's Iain, Lord Murray's valet and a recent acquaintance of mine. He plays a rather crucial part in my plan, which I hope to unravel after I fulfill my duties at the ball."

Her eyes darkened with temper. "Do you mean to tell me you really did include Nellwyn in your scheme and left me completely out? You trusted that featherbrained old troublemaker over me? You left me here, worrying myself into a state?"

"Calm down, Anne, I wouldn't have trusted Nellwyn either if it hadn't been for the doctor's diagnosis. I felt sorry for her. She needed something to take her mind off her worries."

"What doctor?" she said, startled. "What diagnosis?"

He sighed. "The diagnosis that her heart is probably not strong enough to withstand another winter. One of the chambers appears to have some kind of problem."

"Are we talking about the doctor who diagnosed you with housemaid's knee?"

He flushed a little. "Aye. The same one. There is only one doctor in the damned parish."

"Doctor MacDonald did not give Nellwyn that diagnosis," Anne said. "The plumber did."

"The plumber?" he said in surprise.

"Yes. The plumber. He said that the pipes in her bedchamber weren't strong enough to withstand
another winter. The doctor told her that, except for a touch of bursitis, she's as healthy as an ox. I know because I stayed in her room while he examined her. She slapped him because his hands were cold, then she complained that she hadn't had a hot bath since she came here, and that was why the bursitis in her shoulder had been acting up."

"So she isn't going to die?"

"Not from bad plumbing
,"
Anne said, and then she turned her head as a group of guests called her name from the terrace.

She ducked behind a hedge. "We have to go inside, but not until we do something about your appearance. You look as if you've just swept a chimney."

He glanced down at the streaks of dirt on her dress. "You don't look as pristine as a snowdrop yourself, Lady Whitehaven. What were you doing while I was gone—digging a grave?"

"No. Pulling up dead foxgloves. Nellwyn said they cast a pall of evil over a house, and with everything that's happened, I didn't want to take any chances."

He straightened his doublet, then brushed off her dress before they fell into step together. "Stay away from Sir Wallace," he said. "I don't trust him."

She swallowed. "Because you think he's a murderer?"

"No. Because I think he's a walrus."

They paused at the circular marble fountain. "I'll go around the house and reenter the ballroom through the kitchen
,"
he said quietly. "And don't
expect to get rid of me for the rest of the night. I am not letting you out of my sight."

"Something awful
did
happen to you while I was waiting," she said, the fine hairs rising on her nape. "Does that mean Uncle Edgar really was murdered?"

He steered her back onto the pathway. "It means I met with an unanticipated complication, and someone doesn't want us to know how he died."

"Are you going to tell me what the next part of your plan is?" she called over her shoulder as they parted.

He gave her a wry grin. "I am going to serve tea and whiskey toddies, of course."

She hesitated on the steps of the terrace, afraid again of how this evening would end. She realized Patrick had managed to evade a proper explanation. Especially about what part a corpse would play in her party.

And when the killer, if there was one, would try to strike again.

F
lora had seen a gray dog skulking at the bottom of Anne's driveway the night
before. She'd known right away
the animal had to be a
bochan,
a demon looking for mischief or revenge. She had been afraid to go to bed for fear it would bite her while she was sleeping. Or that she might awaken with cloven hooves.

In desperation she had rushed off to visit that horrible old hag Black Mag, but she had left the country. For an exorbitant fee, Mag's daughter had told
Flora that the only way to put a ghost to rest was to sprinkle soil from a sorcerer's grave on the place of his death. After the soil settled, Flora was to set a small fire to sanctify his spirit.

She had hurried home, digesting this information. The problem was, she didn't know of any sorcerer, dead or alive. The closest she had come to meeting such a powerful being was that Sutherland man.

She had returned to Black Mag's daughter, paid another small fortune, and came away with a pouch of dirt and lucifer matches, which seemed appropriately named for what she had in mind. Then she had sneaked away from Anne's party during the dancing, the social event of the season, and had returned to the boathouse where Lord Kingaim had died in her arms.

Flora had not been back to that disgusting place since his death. She was shaking with fright by the time she began to pitch soil through the doorway— she couldn't bring herself to take one step inside. Lord Kingaim had been kind to her and he had promised to marry her if he outlived his wife, which seemed likely, as her ladyship was in poor health. Flora had even convinced herself she loved him.

But she didn't want his dead body coming back to life as had the lovelorn ghost in that infamous novel by the DeWilde Brothers,
Confessions of a Scottish Corpse.
And when she had tossed the entire box of flaming matches into the boathouse, then nailed the door shut with three nails and her shoe for good
measure, she had never expected, not in her worst nightmares, to hear her deceased lover actually coming to life from within.

She had panicked, her muscles paralyzed with a fear so intense she didn't know how she'd managed to run back to her horse.

She didn't know how she rode back to the party either, or why no one had noticed her absence, or the fact that her lips and fingernails had taken a blue tint of fright She couldn't dance or enjoy the whiskey toddies that Anne's wicked butler served during the final reel.

The chilling thing was, she sensed that somehow he knew what she had been up to, as if he possessed a secret power to see into her soul. She nearly died when she looked into his eyes, and he stared at her until she began to shake.

Her father was absolutely useless too, focusing all his attention on Anne, who only had eyes for her butler. Flora drank two toddies in a row and hid in the draperies in a haze of detached anxiety.

Somehow she allowed herself to be pulled along in the crowd of guests who piled into carts and drove to the loch. Somehow she found herself staring down the little pier, waiting with a fishing rod to embark. But when her turn came, she spotted that most unlucky of omens, a white pebble, at the bottom of her boat.

Her stomach contracted, and
sh
e knew this was a sign that the end was near. No one seemed to notice her silent misery. Nor did they notice when
she finally turned and snea
ked off the pier to cower in th
e stand of larch trees that bordered the shore.

No one noticed her strange behavior except the man whose giant figure loomed above the others in the torchlight.

36

S
ir Wallace mentally rehearsed his speech. He had tucked his late wife's engagement ring into his vest pocket. Despite what Flora believed, he did not think of Anne as a vengeful woman. He saw her as an angel who would restore his social status and sexual life, a companion for his twilight years, someone who shared his passion for horses.

Anne would probably think he was the most romantic man in the world, asking for her hand on a misty torchlit loch, which was a far more memorable setting than the ballroom. The story of their engagement would likely reach the Queen, and Sir Wallace would be acknowledged at court, for all things Scottish seemed to be in favor.

Perhaps he and Anne would even have a child together. They were both young enough, and in good health. Perhaps Anne could take Flora in hand, and—

"Excuse me, Sir Wallace," a dark voice said in his ear. "I do believe you have taken my seat."

Sir Wallace's
fantasy deflated as the broad-
shouldered figure of Anne's butler climbed into the boat. "What do you think you are doing now?" he asked indignantly.

Patrick settled down in the confined space. "Didn't her ladyship tell you? I was a gamekeeper before I became a butler. I wouldn't consider allowing Lady Whitehaven to fish unassisted for a second. Why, her delicate white fingers could never touch anything as offensive as a trout."

Sir Wallace turned several shades of purple. "You cannot accompany her ladyship and me tonight. I have plans of a personal nature."

"In a rowboat? You sly old devil. But it's a bit cramped for seduction, don't you think?"

"Not those sort of plans, you impertinent bugger," Sir Wallace retorted, patting his vest pocket. "I have
plans
—to make your mistress a permanent part of my family."

"You're going to adopt Anne? Well, well. I hope you're not waiting for me to congratulate you. She'll most likely laugh in your face."

Sir Wallace leaned forward. "Then do me the courtesy of removing yourself from this boat so that she can laugh at me in private."

"Too late." Patrick gestured to Anne waving at them from the end of the pier. "There's our little orphan now."

"Get out," Sir Wallace said, giving Patrick a shove.

Patrick did not budge, except when he half rose to help Anne down the ladder into the boat. "Sir Wallace has special plans for you tonight, my lady," he said under his breath, gripping her arm to steady her.

"Not another plan," she whispered.

The bog-fir torches mounted on the boat procession cast black-gold shadows on the loch. She went still as she felt Patrick's hand slide down her arm to her back in a gesture that was blatantly possessive. The sexual heat of their dance in the garden still shimmered between them; they had shared too many intimacies to forget. They knew too well what their flirtation could lead to.

"Be careful," he said as he handed her down into her seat.

She grasped his hand before they separated. "And you."

"Must he accompany us, Anne?" Sir Wallace said in a disgruntled voice when she greeted him.

"Just pretend I'm not here," Patrick said, and then he rendered such a suggestion impossible by positioning himself directly between them like a human wall.

Anne craned her neck to see around Patrick's shoulders. "He is rather a nuisance, Sir Wallace, I agree. But I find myself at a loss as to how to handle him."

Sir Wallace sighed. "Thi
s is most off-putting, Anne. What I have to say requires the utmost privacy."

"It's a rare woman who can keep a secret from her butler," Patrick said.

Anne nudged his foot. "Row, Sutherland. Don't talk. We shall never catch anything if we sit at the pier. Besides, everyone is waiting for our boat to take the lead."

The boat sliced through the still water, soon followed by a string of others. The surface of the loch shone with the radiance of lanterns and torches mounted on each craft. Along the hillside, where the bu
rn
spilled into deep stony pools, some of the younger guests had broken tradition to spear fish and to steal kisses in the dark.

Mist drifted across the loch, and the laughter of the young people in the trees gave a fairylike magic to the party. A pair of fiddlers playing on the hill enhanced the ethereal mood.

"Tomorrow is St. Michael's day." Sir Wallace attempted to look around Patrick to Anne. "It would be nice to announce a betrothal during the feast and then celebrate it with a blessing at kirk."

"I believe Lady Whitehaven already has plans for tomorrow afternoon," Patrick said.

"I do?" Anne said, arching her brow.

Dark humor danced in his eyes. "Yes, my lady.
"
Then he mouthed, "In my bed."

"Anne?" Sir Wallace said. "Is that true? Do you have a previous engagement that cannot be put off?"

She shrugged, trailing her fingers in the water, so aware of Patrick she wasn't listening to anything the other man said. She was hopeless. She had fallen in love with her rogue all over again. "I don't know," she answered.

"Then the evening before the horse races," Sir Wallace said, sounding aggrieved. "Will that do, Anne?"

"Will it do what?" she murmured, blinking as if she had been asleep.

Sir Wallace frowned, unable to see through Patrick's shoulders. "What did you say? I cannot hear you over the creaking of those oarlocks and those deuced fiddlers."

"She said that she's busy then too," Patrick replied, leaning harder into the oarlocks to create more noise.

"Why are you splashing so much, Sutherland?" Anne said, looking up in annoyance. "You're getting us wet and frightening off the fish."

"I am talking about holy matrimony," Sir Wallace said in a louder voice. "I am proposing—"

Patrick plunged the oars practically to the bottom of the loch, shooting the small craft forward like a firecracker. Anne gave a squeal of surprise and grabbed her fishing rod before it bounced off her lap.

"You damned idiot!" Sir Wallace said. "Do you not understand the significance of this occasion?" He released a breath and scooted all the way to the end of his seat, attempting to speak to Anne through Patrick. "I want you to be my bride—the circumstances are hardly what I pictured, but one does what one can." He clapped his hand to his heart. "I am asking you to marry me."

"That's very flattering," Patrick said, leaning all the way to the left to block the man's view. "Lurid,
but flattering. I, however, have no wish to be your bride. It's bad enough being a butler."

"Not you, you blasted nodcock!" Sir Wallace shouted. "Was I talking to you?"

Patrick shrugged. "It looked as if you were."

"Would you two like to continue this conversation in private?" Anne inquired tartly. "Perhaps you could let me out on the bank where all the trout have probably taken refuge."

Several boats bumped past them. Lord and Lady Grierson. Lord and Lady Murray, and the Misses Cameron, who giggled when they saw Patrick and raised their fishing rods to him in greeting.

"I believe we are causing another scene," Anne said with a sigh.

Patrick half rose from the boat, his hand lifted to signal to the man standing on the hill. "As far as scenes go, you have not seen anything yet, Lady Whitehaven. Watch this."

A
t first no one thought anything of the unoccupied rowboat that drifted into
the stream of traffic. The oth
er guests were intent on catching the bigboned trout that thrived in the loch, and the rowboat looked like all the others, except that it did not carry a torch.

It was Nellwyn who drew attention to the phantom vessel. Emitting a high-pitched shriek from her own boat, she stood and gestured in horror to the ghostlike figure that rose from the empty rowboat. She was determined to play her part with all the energy she could muster.

"It's Edgar!" She had difficulty making herself heard above the fiddlers on the hill, the only flaw in Patrick's plan. "Dear God in heaven, Lord Kingaim's shade has risen from the grave on the anniversary of his murder to avenge his death!"

"What is she saying?" one of the guests asked.

"Something about celebrating her anniversary," another answered.

Then, with dramatic flair, Patrick raised his lantern to illuminate the dead man's spirit, which was actually Iain moaning in the boat and lifting his arm in an accusing circle around the loch. Finally, after an apparent interval of confusion, the spirit gestured to the woman standing alone on the shore. Flora Abermuir. She stared at the apparition, then spun and ran away. Patrick steered the boat back toward the pier. "Ladies and gentlemen, here we go."

Fortunately for Anne, who had no idea how she would explain any of this to her guests, Iain got carried away and tripped over a big bucket in the rowboat. He toppled into the loch before anyone in the fishing party realized he was meant to be a ghost. His rice powder and rouge washed off before he reached the shore. He ended up looking more like an inebriated guest who could not hold his liquor than an avenging phantom.

But the one person who was intended to believe him to be a resurrected spirit did. The person involved in Lord Kingaim's death saw him clearly from her vantage point between the trees, and nothing could convince her he had not risen from the dead to accuse her.

Flora let out a wail of panic and covered her face in her hands. When she finally saw Patrick with Anne and her papa hurrying toward her, she was ready to confess to everything.

"It was my fault," she said, shaking all over. She leaned up against a tree. She had all but collapsed with the burden of guilt she had carried for a year.

Sir Wallace pulled her into his arms and shook her. "Do not say anything, Flora. Do not say another word."

"Why not?" She raised her anguished face to his. "He is haunting me, Papa. I can't live with myself another day. Not with a death on my conscience."

"You almost had two murders to account for," Patrick said behind her. "I might have believed you were genuinely Sorry about Edgar if you hadn't tried to bu
rn
me to death just a few hours ago."

Anne looked up at him in shock. "She tried to kill you?"

Flora pulled away from her father's arms. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said in horror. "I've never tried to harm you in any way. Lady Whitehaven, you must believe me."

"I saw you running away from the boathouse
after you set a damned bonfire,"
Patrick exclaimed.

"But I didn't know
you
were inside," Flora said, her face gray as she shook her head. "I had no idea."

Sir Wallace regarded her in despair. "Setting fire to a boathouse is not an act of a normal mind, Flora. What in God's name were you thinking?"

She scrubbed her face with her fist. "Everyone
said that Lord Kingaim's ghost would rise tonight in the very spot where he drew his last breath. Well, the truth, as you know, is that he did not die fishing in a rowboat. He died naked in the boathouse in the act of making passionate love to me. His heart expired from the strain."

Anne closed her eyes. "Dear Lord. I shall never be able to explain
that
to the Queen."

"You did not kill him," Patrick said. "But you did drag his body into the rowboat instead of leaving him where he was."

Flora sniffed. "Papa didn't want the world to know I was engaged in an adulterous affair with a nobleman. He believed it would destroy my chances of making a decent marriage."

"The world certainly knows of it now," Sir Wallace said, motioning to Nellwyn, who had walked up behind Anne.

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Fl
ora told Patrick. "I was trying to purify Lord Kingaim's spirit and lay him to rest once and for all."

"It sounds to me as if you already did lay him to rest
,"
Nellwyn said. "Permanently."

"How did you know Uncle Edgar had died in the boathouse?" Anne asked Patrick.

He shrugged. "I
didn't
know. I deduced that something was not quite right about his death. First, Sandy once mentioned that Uncle Edgar had forgotten his favorite fishing rod, and a man who loves to fish never forgets his best fishing rod."

"He should have left his other rod at home too," Nellwyn observed.

Patrick paused. "Then Iain, my valet friend, recalled gossip that his employer's gillie had seen suspicious activity on the pier an hour or so before the party. A man who was drunk, he thought."

"The drunk being Uncle Edgar," Anne said softly.

"Who wasn't drunk but dead," Nellwyn added. "This was the same rumor I had heard."

Flora gave a moan of grief. "I didn't kill him. I loved him." She looked up at Patrick, her eyes filling with fresh tears. "And even though I hate you, I would not harm you."

"I would," Sir Wallace said.

"I wasn't trying to set Sutherland on fire in the boathouse," Flora insisted. "I was afraid to go inside to confront Edgar's spirit in case he was angry at me. So I stood outside and threw soil from a sorcerer's grave onto the mattress and set a fire to purify his soul. Then I nailed the door shut with my shoe so his ghost couldn't chase me in case I failed to lay him."