The Scottish Companion (5 page)

She remained silent.

“Should he be informed of your past, I do not doubt that he would ask me to dispense with your services.”

Aghast, she stared at him. “Why would you do such a thing, sir?”

“I trust that it will not be necessary.”

There was a look in his eyes she’d never before seen, a glance that almost conveyed dislike. “I have
told you that I will try with Arabella,” she said, hoping that her voice was even and conciliatory. She had learned one valuable lesson in the past, and that was to protect herself. Until she had a new position, she could not afford to alienate the doctor.

“You are Arabella’s dutiful companion, someone with Arabella’s interests at heart. That is what you are and that is what I want everyone at Rosemoor to think.”

She clenched her hands together again.

“Not a woman with wildness in her heart, Gillian. Not a girl who would forget that she was a gentlewoman.”

“No. Sir.”

“You have a habit of looking at him too well, Gillian. Anyone could see he interests you.”

Ah, the true reason for this tête-à-tête.

“See that your history does not repeat itself, Gillian, that no hint of scandal comes to Rosemoor because of your actions. If you cannot remember, then I will be forced to confide in the earl. You will find yourself on the streets of Edinburgh again.”

A curt nod was all she could muster before leaving him.

Grant opened the letter with some trepidation, hoping it wasn’t bad news. Instead, it was the very best news of all. He began to smile as he scanned his friend’s scrawled handwriting, easily discerning from the labyrinth of loops and swirls exactly what Lorenzo was trying to say. His friend had been delayed in London, but would arrive at Rosemoor as soon as he was able.

In the meantime, he had some advice to impart to Grant. A list of remedies followed, some of which Grant thought he might as well attempt in the interim. He found himself nodding in agreement toward the end of the letter.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been in Scotland when Andrew had fallen ill and died. Nor had he noticed James becoming sick before the illness that had claimed his life. But then, he’d been involved in his own interests, spending countless hours traveling back and forth to Perth to ensure that his machinery had arrived safely from Italy.

James might well have been ill long before he knew it. Unfortunately, his brother had been one of those individuals who never complain until complaints would do no good.

He folded the letter and put it away, thinking that it had been too long since he’d seen Lorenzo. There were a few people he could trust, and although he trusted Count Paterno more than any other man, even Lorenzo did not know all his secrets.

Oddly enough, contentment permeated Rosemoor. The servants seemed pleased to be employed at the great house, and there were many smiles among the
staff. She’d also heard laughter along the corridors, and it was such an odd sound for this place that she stopped and listened for it.

Was she the only one who could see beneath the smiles to the true evil?

The gray eyes of the Roberson males were the color of smoke, of slate. The devil’s colors, as if he lived inside each of them.

True, they were all charming, the Roberson men. Each one of them, from the patriarch on down, had the grace of Gabriel, and the slyness, too. They smiled with ease, and it took great practice to see beyond their pleasantries to the sin residing in their hearts.

It wasn’t that voices told her how evil they were. True, there were voices she heard in her mind, voices that she knew other people didn’t hear. Sometimes she thought that the voices were the various entities of God Himself: the Holy Spirit, the Son, and God the Father. But then they would change and seem almost like children, and she’d know exactly who they were. Mostly she knew that what she heard was her conscience, goading her to duty.

Practice had made her fingers nimble at their task. She uncorked the cobalt bottle, inserted the long-handled spoon, and removed a small quantity of powder. Every day she ingested a little, placing it on the tip of her tongue. If she survived to the following day, she knew she should be about her mission.

When it was time, she would add a larger quantity to the earl’s food or beverage and watch him die with a true and deep sorrow. People would come to join her in mourning such a man, and they would marvel at her composure, at her dignity.

There was no rancor in this act. It was simply something that needed to be done. A task that needed to be carried out for the good of all. Such evil could not be allowed to exist in the world. Such horror must have a consequence.

The bloodline must be eliminated.

A
rabella was claiming a headache, and said she’d taken one of her powders. Short of dragging her from her chamber, there was nothing for Gillian to do but wish her well.

It was a blessing that the girl had chosen to barricade herself in her chamber. For a few hours, Gillian would be free of her, free of any duties, free of pretense. Free, most of all, of being the guardian of Arabella’s future.

What would Dr. Fenton say if she was truly honest about Arabella? Did he really wish to know all of Arabella’s deficiencies?

Arabella must learn to be kind. She should pay attention to others, in order to notice their sadness or irritation. If she could not dredge a drop of sympathy for another living soul, then she should pretend to care. Pretense was sometimes necessary, especially if another’s feelings were to be spared. There is no virtue to brutal honesty. Arabella must guard her tongue. The world truly did not care for her opinion, especially if it was unduly harsh. A little tact went a very long way, and silence even farther.

Arabella must look beyond the boundaries of her books. There was a world outside the printed page, or the bones of her skeleton. There was music in the wind, in the sounds of the birds, in the silence of the countryside. There was beauty all around them, especially at Rosemoor, and she was foolish to ignore it so unremittingly.

Arabella must learn to exhibit some enjoyment in the world, in a manner that did not include disease, suffering, or death.

There, that was enough to start with, and she’d not yet begun on Arabella’s social graces. The girl needed to be slowed when it came to eating. She gobbled up her food as if it were going to disappear, or as if eating were a chore that, although necessary, was not enjoyable. She needed to learn to talk to other people. A simple inquiry as to the weather would suffice. She must not ask a stranger about his intestines, and please, for pity’s sake, let her learn that a diagnosis of impending death was not socially acceptable.

Playing the pianoforte was perhaps more than Gillian could hope for, as was any skill in watercolors, but Arabella was certainly capable of learning how to do many of the Scottish country dances.

But for now, she was tired of Arabella. She had a few hours of freedom, and instead of retiring to her room, she wanted to explore.

Gillian wasn’t entirely certain that what she was doing was proper or even acceptable. She was constrained by manners in the fact that she was the Earl of Straithern’s guest, but that thought did not stop her now. Curiosity drew her out the front door of Rose
moor and down the sloping lawn to the lake she’d seen on her arrival.

The lake was a perfect oval and quite obviously created by man at the lowest point of the lawn, and designed to reflect the building it fronted. The waterfowl didn’t seem to mind that the lake was created for artistic purposes. Instead, the geese and ducks were absolutely content to paddle around on the glassy surface.

Cattails surrounded the lake at the narrowest point and were obviously trimmed from time to time. So they would not mar the purity of the scene?

The building opposite the lake was large and square and constructed of white stone that gleamed in the morning sun. On either side of the tall arched doorway was a vaulted recess, each filled with a life-size alabaster statue of a woman dressed in a diaphanous garment. On the second floor was an entablature consisting of four statues: two men dressed only in a loincloth and holding spears, flanked by two women as scantily dressed.

Above the door, directly beneath the steeply pitched tile roof, was another statue, this one of a pair of lovers. The woman was bent back in the embrace of a powerful-looking male who was plundering her with a kiss. The inscription, carved into a ribbon of stone at the base of the figures, read “Virtue and Vice.”

It was all too easy to recognize that Vice was winning that particular battle.

Upon first seeing the building, she’d thought it to be some sort of crypt, but it was much too large. The structure was larger than Dr. Fenton’s house, but was dwarfed by Rosemoor.

The spring morning was chilly but not uncomfortably so. The call of the birds was the only sound, the soft swaying of the cattails the only movement. She might have stepped into a painting, something appropriately titled to reflect the earl’s wealth and prominence.

Slowly she encircled the lake, taking the path worn in the grass to the front door of the structure. At the bottom of the steps, she hesitated for a moment before grabbing her skirts in her fists and lifting them slightly. She took the first step, ignoring the voice of her conscience that warned her against being where she didn’t belong.

No one protested her arrival. No human voice called out in anger. No ghostly denizens decried her actions. She was alone with the statues, with the tall, arched, black-painted door and its brass knocker.

She pushed in the door, surprised to find that it was unlocked. Surely, if such a place was not open to visitors, it would be locked tightly? One last whisper of caution sounded in her ear. How could she possibly guide Arabella if she was as lacking in social graces?

She had every intention of closing the door, walking down the three wide steps, and returning to Rosemoor. But just at that moment, a shaft of sunlight illuminated the room through a rounded window in the roof.

Breathless with wonder, she pushed aside the door, her attention captivated by the light and what it revealed: a large area sunken into the floor below the glass dome, surrounded by a series of columns, and ringed by concentric circles of steps.

Slowly she crossed the floor, carefully descending the steps, until she stood bathed in the light. This would be a sunny refuge in winter, or even in this chilly spring.

“You’re trespassing, you know.”

She whirled, and looked up to find the earl standing on the edge of the steps looking down at her.

“Did no one tell you this was my laboratory?” he asked.

She felt a sudden surge of caution as she stared up at him. He was dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, his black boots gleaming in the sunlight. He was as dark as the devil, with his black hair and gray eyes. He had a smile tinged with self-mockery even in the midst of genuine amusement. His face was perfectly formed, all the features neither remarkable nor forgettable, but somewhere in between. A normal, average face that managed not to be either normal or average at all. Somehow, he managed to appear all at once extraordinarily handsome and particularly dangerous.

Words were simply beyond her. Finally, blessedly, she found her voice. “I apologize, Your Lordship. I thought the building empty.”

“It is not,” he said curtly.

“I apologize,” she repeated, ascending the steps.

“How long have you been here, Miss Cameron?”

She looked at him. “You know when we arrived, Your Lordship.”

“A day. A scant day, is it not?”

She nodded.

“Yet in that short time, you’ve managed to find the palace and invade my privacy.”

“The palace?” she asked, confused.

“It’s a name that was given to the place a very long time ago. The Pleasure Palace, to be precise.”

“I did not intend to invade your privacy, Your Lordship. But I did see the palace when we arrived and was curious about it. If you consider curiosity to be a bad trait, then I am doomed to be in your disfavor. Surely as the Earl of Straithern you’re accustomed to people being in awe of Rosemoor?”

He studied her for a moment. “Are you always so direct, Miss Cameron? Such honesty is dangerous, you know. I could forgive you anything for it.”

It was her turn to remain silent, but only until curiosity surfaced yet again.

“Even my curiosity?”

“Has it not been satisfied?”

She smiled. “If anything, Your Lordship, it has only been whetted. What, exactly, is the palace used for?”

“I am a scientist, Miss Cameron.”

At her silence, he continued. “Had you no idea?”

She shook her head.

“For the last several years, I’ve been living in Italy. Did you know that?”

She shook her head again.

“What do you know of me?”

“You are an earl and you wish to marry Arabella.”

He looked startled. “That is the extent of it?’

“Perhaps your financial condition might be mentioned as well,” she said, as tactfully as possible. “You are quite wealthy, I understand.”

“Nothing as to my nature, my character?”

“You have suffered a loss, Your Lordship. Other than that, I’ve no knowledge of you.”

“Nor I you, Miss Cameron,” he said, his voice sounding as harsh as a millstone.

He strode away from the rotunda, leaving her staring after him.

“Well?” His voice echoed through the cavernous space. “Are you coming? If you’ve no wish to see my laboratory, leave now.”

“The three of you make me feel woefully inadequate,” she said, racing to catch up with him.

“The three of us?” he asked over his shoulder.

“You, Dr. Fenton, and Arabella. All of you are scientists to some degree.”

“I would differ with you. Fenton is a doctor. Arabella wishes to be one. I study electrics.”

She stopped and stared at his back.

“Electrics? What are electrics?”

He turned to face her. “Do you truly wish to know? Or is that simply an idle response? I do not mind addressing a scholarly interest, Miss Cameron, but I haven’t time for chatter. Nor do I have an interest in it.”

“I truly wish to know,” she said.

“Then come with me.”

Without glancing to see if she was following, he turned and walked away.

See that your history does not repeat itself, Gillian, that no hint of scandal comes to Rosemoor because of your actions.
Dr. Fenton’s words echoed in her mind, but it wasn’t his warning that slowed her footsteps. Her own memories stopped her there
in the shadowed hallway, staring after the Earl of Straithern.

“Well, Miss Cameron?” He slowed, glancing impatiently back at her. “Are you coming?”

He was not tempting her to sin, only to curiosity.

She nodded, and followed him.