A Highland Duchess (5 page)

“You think me kind?”

She glanced up at him.

“I haven’t been appreciably kind, Duchess, since we met. What disturbs me is that you think I have been. It makes me wonder what other treatment you’ve had in comparison.”

“Must we continue to talk?” she asked. “I find that I am excessively fatigued.”

“All of a sudden?”

“It has been building,” she said, biting off the words. “Ever since I was forced from my own home.”

“I would convey my apologies for that, Duchess,” he said, his tone just as terse, “except for one fact. The house you claim as a home didn’t seem excessively comforting to me. No one will strike you here, Duchess. No one will threaten you.”

How very strange that it was easy to smile. “You have threatened me from the moment you took me from my home, sir. It does no good to say you have not done so. Actions count louder than words. Anyone can be a brute and say he hasn’t been.”

“Like your husband, Duchess?”

She didn’t answer.

“I shouldn’t have taken you from your home,” he said, surprising her. “Frankly, I didn’t know what to do at the time. But it’s been done, and we must work with the situation as it stands now. Not as we wish it might be.”

He smiled, and she wished he wouldn’t. The expression rendered him even more handsome, a darkly beautiful creature who confused her.

He turned and walked toward the door. On the threshold he glanced back at her. “Forgive me, Emma,” he said. And then he was gone.

Emma stood, walked across the room and pressed her hand against the closed door. A kind manner could hide a perfidious heart; she knew that only too well. She turned and looked around the room, searching for something she might use as a weapon. The poker in the fireplace tools would do nicely.

She would never again be caught unawares.

Rain sheeted the glass, creating an intimate and watery prison. The only good thing about this entire situation was that she couldn’t be married as long as she was a prisoner.

How quickly would her uncle ransom her?

When a knock sounded a quarter hour later, she stood at the door with the poker in hand, more than willing to defend herself.

It wasn’t the thief, however, but a young maid holding a tray.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” she said, bobbing a curtsy, “but I’ve been told to bring you something to eat. I’ve bread and cheese, and some of Cook’s biscuits.”

Emma wasn’t hungry but didn’t think it necessary to explain to the young girl that the circumstances of her abduction had stripped her of any appetite she might have had.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling the door open and propping the poker behind it.

Anthony had admonished her at least once a day not to thank the servants.
They are there to do your bidding, Emma. Thanking them undermines your authority.

She’d never argued with him. Yet to say
thank you
was a small thing, an inconsequential rebellion, and therefore one she continued.

The maid disappeared, bobbing yet another curtsy. London servants were more jaded than that young girl, making Emma wonder if she’d come recently from the country. Or from Scotland?

The maid knocked again. This time when Emma opened the door it was to find herself face-to-face with Ian.

Since leaving her, he’d changed. He was no longer dressed in solid black. Instead, his shirt was white, his gray trousers dry and pressed. He no longer wore boots but well-polished shoes with elegant silver buckles. His hair had been dried as well, no longer falling forward across his brow. If she’d met him anywhere but in her sitting room, she would’ve thought him a peer of the realm, or at the very least a gentleman of the merchant class.

Instead, he was a thief with immaculate manners, and a taste for gentrified life.

“I’ve brought you a nightgown,” he said, and only then did she realize that he held a folded garment in his hands. He halted a few steps into the room.

She took the precaution of stepping to the back of the door, the poker once more in her hand.

“You have the most horrified expression on your face, Emma,” he said. “Why?”

“Is your mistress in residence?” she asked.

He frowned at her. “Mistress?” He placed the nightgown on the end of the bed before returning to the door.

“A ménage à trois? Is that what you think I have planned? If you hadn’t been married to the Duke of Herridge, I might have asked you where you got such an idea.”

She gripped the poker tighter.

“I’m not the Duke of Herridge,” he said, his voice strangely kind.

She was trembling in earnest and it had nothing to do with the chill she felt or the residual dampness of her clothing.

“The garment belongs to my mother,” he said. “She has never worn it. It was delivered after she returned to Scotland. I’m certain she would not have any objection if you took advantage of that fact.”

“I’m in mourning,” she said.

Amusement danced in his eyes. “Must a widow wear everything in black?”

“I really have no intention of discussing my garments with you.”

“Even your . . . ” He was obviously struggling to find an acceptable word.

Emma remained silent, enjoying his discomfiture. “Everything,” she finally said.

“Would the world know if, for one night, you didn’t wear black??”

Instead of answering him, she asked a question of her own. “What would your mother say about my being here?”

“She’d be horrified,” he said, smiling. “You see, I haven’t had a very long history of abduction. No doubt she’d have some recommendations. She comes from a long line of border reivers.”

He turned and without another word left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. She knew, and yet couldn’t say exactly why she knew, that if she wished to leave this room, or this house, there would be no barriers to her doing so. He would simply stand aside, his dark eyes revealing nothing.

Kindness, however, often masked a cruel nature. Another lesson she’d learned from Anthony.

She took the precaution of locking the door.

Emma moved to the bed and stared down at the nightgown. It wasn’t black, and at this moment she didn’t care. She could remain dressed in her damp clothing but that didn’t seem reasonable. She could easily catch cold, and the very last thing she wanted was to be ill while a captive.

Turning, she glanced at the door and then back at the bed, then moved the desk chair to the door and wedged the back beneath the handle.

Slowly, she began to undress, placing her dress on the chair by the window, hoping that it would dry overnight. Once attired in the pale blue nightgown—silk, by the touch of it—Emma sat on the edge of the bed.

What was she to do?

Today she’d been informed she was to marry again, but she couldn’t face that horror right at the moment. Instead, she thought about her abduction, how Ian had struck her uncle in her defense, how she’d been so startled by that act that she allowed him to grab her and escape from her own home.

A home that wasn’t truly a home, just as he’d said. But if the town house wasn’t home, then what was? Not her childhood home of Graviston Park. Her uncle now owned that as well. Certainly not Chavensworth; it had gone to Anthony’s cousin. Even if the great house had not been entailed, she would never have returned, willingly, to Chavensworth.

Where did she belong?

I
an made it to his library before he began to swear. He closed the door, leaned both hands against it, then clenched his fists into palms, bruising his knuckles against the hard wood. If he could have disinterred the Duke of Herridge at that moment, he would have gleefully pummeled his corpse.

At the moment, however, he was more annoyed at himself than he was the dead duke.

He rounded his desk and sat behind it, extracting a piece of his stationery and loading the nib with ink. He closed the letter with:

Your niece will be surrendered upon receipt of the mirror. A man will call upon you in one day, sufficient time to obtain the mirror from Chavensworth.

Rest assured that the Duchess of Herridge is being cared for and will suffer no harm.

He sat back. He’d never written a ransom note before but it seemed to cover the matter suitably. Of course, he’d never abducted a duchess before, either, both actions entirely out of keeping with his nature and his inclinations.

He’d send the note by messenger tomorrow morning, instructing one of his staff from Lochlaven to ensure it was done with some anonymity.

At least no one would expect Emma to appear anywhere. She was in seclusion, in mourning. All that he had to do was ensure that no one in his home knew who she was, or if they did discover her identity, that they not speak of it.

Most of his employees had come from Lochlaven, returning home when their taste of London was surfeited. He’d counted on their loyalty many times before tonight. Patterson, however, was a different story. The majordomo was so stiffly English that it was a wonder the man had deigned to be employed by the Earl of Buchane and the Laird of Trelawny. He knew he had to keep Patterson suitably occupied and ignorant of Emma’s identity.

Until Emma’s uncle retrieved the mirror and returned to London, she would be his guest. In the meantime he would ensure that her stay was as comfortable as possible, that no further talk swirled around her.

He banished the thought that perhaps it wasn’t altogether wise to feel protective of the Duchess of Herridge.

“I
s there no sign of her?” Peter, Earl of Falmouth, asked.

“No sign, Your Lordship,” the majordomo said, standing in front of Peter’s chair with head bowed. “Nor of the carriage.”

“No one knows in which direction it traveled?”

“We were unable to discover that, Your Lordship,” the majordomo said. “Would you like us to keep looking?”

“No,” Peter said, holding his hand to his jaw. “The rain has gotten stronger. I doubt there is a soul abroad who would’ve seen the carriage at this point. You say you didn’t get a good look at him?”

“Your Lordship, I was not in the front hall when they left.”

“And you have no idea how he got into the house?”

Neither the majordomo nor any of the footmen ringed behind him had any idea. But then, he knew that anyone who would allow a stranger to come into his house wouldn’t admit to it.

“Shall I send for a physician, Your Lordship?” the majordomo asked.

“No,” he said. His jaw felt as if it were broken, but it wasn’t, merely sore. He would have a mark on his face for days, courtesy of the stranger who’d stolen his niece away from the house.

If she didn’t marry, then he’d be unable to pay his blackmailer. The young fool would talk. Someone might begin to think that the man was more than a sot and there was some truth to his assertions.

The very last thing he could afford was a bit of inquiry. He had to find Emma, and marry her off with all possible haste.

Chapter 5

T
he knock on the door roused Emma from a surprisingly deep and restful sleep. She rolled over onto her back, blinking several times before realizing where she was.

She’d been abducted. Should she have slept quite so well? For that matter, should she be as ravenously hungry as she was?

The knock came again, and she sat up, tossing the covers aside. After moving the chair, she unlocked the door cautiously and opened it, peering around the edge. It wasn’t Ian but the same young maid who’d brought her a tray the night before.

“I’m to tell you, miss,” the girl said, “that the master would like you to join him for breakfast. I’m to make it in the form of an invitation and not an order.”

She repeated the words with such diligence that Emma knew she’d been coached.

Perhaps it would be better to request a tray in her room. Or were prisoners given such flexibility?

At home, she wasn’t. Even if she did not feel like facing the day, she was expected to be at breakfast when the bell rang every morning, to share the time with her uncle, to pass the minutes in conversation of some sort.

One day, perhaps, she would have a single establishment of her own. She would be the one to dictate if she came down to breakfast in the morning or chose to take her lunch in the evening. There would be no one but her to decide how she might spend her days.

“You need to give me a few minutes to get dressed,” she said.

“Then I’m to take you to the garden, miss.”

“The garden?”

“The master eats in the garden on fair days.”

“A moment, then,” Emma said.

The maid bobbed a curtsy and left.

Emma did not call her back to help her dress. She’d disrobed the night before; she could certainly dress herself this morning. For the first time in her life, however, she had no choice of garments to wear. In her armoire at home there were at least a dozen dresses suitable for half-mourning, some with touches of white about the collar and sleeves. One or two were ornamented with jet beads or delicate little ruches across the bodice. Small touches of femininity to remind her that even though she mourned, she was alive.