The Bodyguard (27 page)

“There’s a man at the door claiming he’s soon to be the new laird of Clan MacKinnon,” the butler replied.

Mr. Ambleside didn’t reveal by so much as a twitch how astonishing he found this announcement. Before the earl had left for London, he had assured Mr. Ambleside that Lady Katherine seemed amenable to his suit. It seemed Carlisle had been wrong.

Mr. Ambleside chided himself for being so complacent. The lady had delayed so long in making her choice, he had assumed she found no particular man among her clansmen to her liking. He would need to take the
man’s measure, and if he was going to be trouble, the situation would need to be handled immediately.

The actual meaning of Harper’s words dawned on him then: “Soon to be laird.” The wedding was still in the future, which meant all was not lost.

“Show him in, Harper.” Mr. Ambleside dipped his pen in the crystal inkwell and marked a notation in one of the columns of figures. He intended to let this Scotsman stand and wait to be recognized, much as he had done with Harper. It would put the man in his place without having to say a word. He heard the library door open and close but didn’t look up to see his newest nemesis.

“I’m Alex Wheaton.”

Mr. Ambleside recognized the name and immediately made the connection.
Alex Wheaton. Alastair Wharton
. Good God. Was it the duke?

He looked up and found himself staring into the merciless gray eyes of the Duke of Blackthorne. He came out of his chair as though he’d discovered his ass was perched on an anthill.

“Your—” He couldn’t even get out the words
Your Grace
. He had to stop to swallow down the vomit that was threatening to erupt from his belly. Acid burned the back of his throat. He had not seen Blackthorne since the duke’s marriage, eleven years ago. But it was not a face one forgot. “Your visit is a surprise,” he managed to say.

“I expect so,” the duke replied.

Blackthorne’s eyes were cold and unfriendly, and
Mr. Ambleside summoned all of his inner strength to keep from visibly trembling.

“I’ve come to speak with you about the rents.”

“The rents?” Mr. Ambleside didn’t recognize his own voice. It was the constriction in his throat, of course, that made it sound like the squeal of a mouse being crushed in a cat’s jaws.

“They’re too high,” the duke said. “Much too high.”

“I can explain that.”

“I’m listening.”

“Would you like to sit down?” Mr. Ambleside asked, gesturing toward the two wing chairs before the fire. Perhaps His Grace would look less intimidating if he wasn’t towering over him by a full head.

“No,” the duke replied. “This isna a social visit.”

For the first time, Mr. Ambleside noticed the accent. He had been too frightened at first to hear much of anything but the pounding of his own blood in his ears. But English dukes did not go around saying
isna
. His brain was scrambling for an explanation for that oddity when it dawned on him that the duke had announced himself as
Alex Wheaton
, not
Alastair Wharton
, or even
Blackthorne
.

Mr. Ambleside stared hard at the man standing before him. Maybe it was not the duke. Maybe it was someone with a similar name who looked a great deal like him. Enough like him to be his twin, except for the broken nose and the scar through his right eyebrow and the clothes. He wore belted trousers and a blousy shirt
and a dirk, and had wrapped himself in the MacKinnon plaid.

But the duke had been severely beaten, and his own clothes, as Mr. Ambleside had cause to know, had been stolen. And the name, Alex Wheaton, so very close to Alastair Wharton? No. There were too many coincidences. The man had to be the duke.

But if so, where had he been all this time? Why hadn’t the Bow Street Runner found him? And why arrive at Blackthorne Hall speaking like a Scotsman and calling himself Alex Wheaton and claiming to be the new laird of Clan MacKinnon? A game played by a bored aristocrat? Or something more sinister. A trick to make his steward betray himself?

Mr. Ambleside didn’t understand what was going on, but decided he might as well err on the side of caution and delay pleading for mercy until he had asked a few more questions.

“I’m waiting,” the duke said.

For an explanation of the high rents
, Mr. Ambleside realized. Well, he might as well cover his tracks now as later. He reached into the fob pocket of his waistcoat and retrieved a key on a short chain, then crossed to the bookcase closest to the windows. He pushed a lever on the inside of the third shelf and the entire bookcase moved outward. He pulled it fully away from the wall, revealing a false wall that contained a tall iron safe.

He used the key to open the safe and pulled out a sheaf of papers from one of the shelves, letters he’d previously forged with the duke’s signature in the event
anyone, including the duke himself, ever inquired about the exorbitant rents. If questioned, he planned to plead his strict obedience to duty. They were very good forgeries.

He methodically closed and relocked the safe, then realigned the bookcase and turned to the duke. “Here are the letters I received authorizing the latest increases,” he said, handing the letters to the man standing before him.

He watched the duke page through the letters one by one, his features becoming more and more fierce.

The game is up
, Mr. Ambleside realized.
He knows the signatures are forged. Even if I escape responsibility for the forgeries, he’s going to want an accounting of the extra rent money. At least I’ve kept that in the library safe. I can say I never forwarded the money because I intended to make improvements
.

He had come so close to having it all! Mr. Ambleside clamped his jaws tight to keep from giving away his rage and frustration. He had learned in all those miserable English boarding schools where he had studied hard to become a proper Englishman, how to keep his feelings hidden, how to look serene and unruffled, when inside his heart ached and bled.

“So the duke authorized the increases. You had nothing to do with it yourself?”

Why doesn’t he recognize the letters as forgeries?
Mr. Ambleside wondered.
Why does he refer to the duke as though he were someone else?
“I’m merely the steward here,” he said. “I merely follow orders.”

“How can I get a message to the new duke?”

Mr. Ambleside’s knees nearly gave him away. They buckled quite without warning, and if he hadn’t been close enough to brace himself on the desk, he would have landed in a heap on the floor. He stared hard at the man before him. It
was
the duke. He was sure of it. But the man genuinely did not seem to know he was the duke.

Amnesia? Perhaps from the beating he was given?
It was the only answer that made sense.

“You may leave a message with me. I will see that it reaches His Grace,” Mr. Ambleside said in a voice that trembled with excitement.

“Tell the new duke that Alex Wheaton will be wed to Lady Katherine MacKinnon in three weeks, after the banns are read. Tell him we willna be waiting here anymore like sheep for the slaughter, that we’ll be going to London to fight him in court. Tell him he’d better come get what’s his from Blackthorne Hall and take it back to England. Because before the year is out, the new Laird of Clan MacKinnon will also be Laird of Blackthorne Hall.”

It was a bold speech, Mr. Ambleside conceded as he watched the duke stalk out of the library, and proved once and for all that Alex Wheaton had no idea who he was. It was a well-known fact that, after his first disastrous marriage, Blackthorne had vowed never to marry again.

Could Katherine MacKinnon have realized, as he had, that Alex Wheaton and Alastair Wharton were the
same person? He did not think so. He based this conclusion on the level of hatred she and her father had always exhibited toward the English. She would never marry the enemy. And yet, it was a sure way to gain Blackthorne Hall.

Such speculation left Mr. Ambleside with a great deal of food for thought. How long would the duke’s amnesia last? Hours? Days? Weeks?

He could not afford to waste any time. He needed Blackthorne dead before Katherine MacKinnon married him in the kirk and got pregnant with his child. To be on the safe side, he might as well take care of Lady Katherine at the same time. An accident perhaps. He would find someone who could do the job right this time.

Alex had waited with bated breath for Mr. Ambleside to look up from his desk and had watched closely for any sign of recognition in the man’s eyes. There had been none. Alex had come and gone from the library without the slightest sign from the duke’s steward that he was anyone other than the stranger he had claimed to be.

However, Alex had experienced another one of those damned flashbacks, one in which Mr. Ambleside appeared. Only, the steward was a much younger man. He’d had a full head of hair, instead of being almost bald, and it was dark brown, instead of streaked with gray. And Mr. Ambleside must have thickened in the
middle as he’d aged, because in the vision he looked more fit.

Alex had been a child of perhaps six or seven.

The brief glimpse of the past had come and gone so quickly, Alex hadn’t noticed what the two of them were doing together. The instant the library door closed behind him, he brought the memory back into focus to examine it further.

Mr. Ambleside was handing him something. A wooden box with a brass clasp. He opened the box and found … knights on horseback. He smiled with pleasure, then turned to show them to …

Nothing.

Alex blinked his eyes as though that would make the scene continue, but the image stopped as though he had come to a stone wall.

Who am I? What connection do I have to this house? Why did Mr. Ambleside pretend he didn’t know me, when obviously we have met before?

Perhaps he had been a guest and the present had been sent by someone else and delivered to him by Mr. Ambleside. Maybe it had been a brief encounter a long time ago, and Mr. Ambleside didn’t recognize him as an adult. What other possible reason could the steward have for not admitting the connection?

Alex had no answers for his questions, but any thoughts he might have entertained about being the duke were cast in serious doubt. There was no reason he could see for the duke’s steward not to welcome the duke with gladness.

Unless the steward had recognized him as Blackthorne, realized he did not know who he was, and had chosen not to enlighten him for nefarious reasons of his own. But that scenario struck him as farfetched, based on Mr. Ambleside’s lack of agitation in their recent meeting, and he discounted it.

Who am I?
The answer was not forthcoming.

At least the trip had not been wasted. Alex had seen for himself the letters from the duke authorizing the increased rents. They were testimony to the duke’s ruthlessness. It was apparent Blackthorne had intended the tenants to be driven off the land and didn’t care how much harm he caused in the process. Alex was going to take great pleasure in taking Blackthorne Hall away from such a monster.

As an unexpected dividend of his visit, Alex had discovered where Mr. Ambleside kept the duke’s money. He had carefully noted where the hidden lever was located when Mr. Ambleside moved the bookcase to reveal the secret compartment. All he had to do was figure out a way to steal the key to the safe from Mr. Ambleside, and there would be funds enough to feed the entire MacKinnon clan until the courts returned Blackthorne Hall to its rightful owner.

Alex was walking to the front door of the castle when he smelled apple and cinnamon and pastry. His mouth began to water, and he saw another vision.

Himself as that same small child. Cook slapping his hand with a spoon as he reached for an apple tart fresh
from the oven. Cook warning him he’d burn his fingers if he didn’t let it cool first
.

Alex reversed course and headed for the back of the house, following the delicious aromas to the kitchen. The door was open, and the moment he crossed the threshold, the heat hit him like a wave. He inhaled deeply and experienced a vivid memory of the kitchen. He knew exactly where the tarts would have been laid to cool—on the windowsill. The room was sweltering hot, and his muslin shirt stuck to his back as he took another step forward.

He looked toward the open window, but the tarts weren’t there. He glanced back toward the stove and saw an ample rear end bent over the oven. A young girl stood nearby, ready to help.

“See, Alice? Just right,” Cook said. “Now we let them cool over here by the window—”

As Cook turned, her mittened hands holding a hot tray of tarts, Alex came into her line of sight.

“—and they’ll taste—” Cook froze as her eyes lighted on him. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted dead away.

Alex leapt toward her, catching the tray of tarts before it fell on her and burned her. The metal was hot enough to blister his fingertips, and he yelped and slung the tray onto the wooden counter beneath the window.

He knelt beside Cook and lifted her head. “Help me!” he ordered the kitchen maid who was staring at him, horrified.

“What can I do?”

“Get me that cloth to put under Cook’s head,” he said, gesturing toward a drying towel. Given some instruction, the girl was able to move. As Alex settled Cook’s head on the towel, he said, “And some water.”

Instead of a glass of water to revive the cook, the girl brought him an entire bucket. He took advantage of the opportunity to dip in his hand and cool off his burned fingers, then used them to flick water into Cook’s face.

The splashing liquid brought her around, and she began to moan piteously.

“What’s wrong with her?” Alex asked. “Is she sick?”

“I dinna think so, sir,” the girl said.

“Why did she faint like that?”

“I dinna know, sir.”

Alex thought he did. She had recognized him. All he had to do was get her to take another look and tell him who he was.

Her eyes flickered open, then widened. She began to moan. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”