Julia London 4 Book Bundle (133 page)

A trip to Madame Farantino’s brothel was even less successful than the wine. He sought to erase the memory of her body with that of another, but it was a wholly and humiliatingly futile endeavor. Nothing could take Kerry from his mind. Nothing.

A week later, Alex returned from Sutherland Hall with his sister-in-law Lauren and their three young sons. It took Arthur another two days to rouse himself from his doldrums to pay a call on his brother. When he arrived at twenty-two Audley Street, it was apparent Alex had already heard the news of his unfortunate bout of love. A copy of the latest
Times
sat folded on the edge of Alex’s desk. Arthur had seen the
on-dit
in the society pages that speculated what a certain brother of an influential duke might have done with his Scottish bumpkin after amusing half the
ton
with her.

He waited for Alex to chastise him, remind him he was the son of the eighth duke of Sutherland and the brother of the tenth. He fell into a chair, lazily accepted a cup of tea from a maid, and stared at a picture of his father and mother.

“I ran into Kettering at White’s last evening.”

Arthur said nothing, waited for the lecture. Much to his great surprise, however, Alex merely studied his French cuffs and remarked, “I gather it has been a very trying time for you.”

A gross understatement. It had been hell.

“I was reminded of the weeks before Lauren and I married.”

Arthur glanced at his brother. “This is hardly the same thing.” That was true—Lauren was a countess in her own right; her family had connections to the
ton.
And when she had fled home, it had been only miles from Sutherland Hall, a place Alex could easily reach her. Furthermore, Alex was engaged to be married to another woman at the time. He had not given everything he had to Lauren only to have her disappear into thin air.

Alex shrugged, lifted his gaze from his French cuff. “Isn’t it? I recall sitting in this very room with our mother. Lauren had left; I was engaged to marry Marlaine Reese. They were terribly black days. And do you know what Hannah said to me?”

Arthur shook his head.

“She said, ‘the French have a saying:
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have ever seen.
’ ”

Arthur shrugged indifferently. “And?”

“And,” said Alex calmly, “she urged me to break my engagement and go after Lauren for the sake of true love.”

Now he was only confusing Arthur, who irritably shook his head. “I know all that, but this is not the same thing, Alex. You would hardly suggest that I toddle off to Scotland—”

“What is keeping you here?”

That brought him up short. He stared at his older brother as if he had lost his mind. Alex lifted a dark brow and God in heaven, Arthur wasn’t sure that he hadn’t. “Do you know who she is, Alex? She is the widow of a poor Scottish farmer who tried to dig himself out of bad investments by taking Phillip’s money. Only he squandered that, too, and lost everything. Kerry McKinnon hasn’t so much as a farthing to her name.”

Alex laughed. “There are worse histories in our family background,” he said with a smile. “If poverty is her only crime, I should think you could easily alleviate that.”

“What of her lack of connections? Even Paddy was cool to her.”

“I wouldn’t know what her lack of connections means in Edinburgh drawing rooms, but here? Paddy will accept her once Mother is through with her. Kettering, Albright, our cousin Westfall—Darfield, certainly. They will most assuredly ignore anything as superficial as connections. Who else concerns you?”

Arthur gaped at his brother. “And what invitations do you think we shall receive at the height of the Season?” he asked disgustedly. “When you and the others are off to some ball, who exactly do you think will want us at their supper table?”

With a frown, Alex resumed the study of his French cuff. “What does it matter if you are in Scotland?” He looked up, gauging Arthur’s reaction, and quickly continued before Arthur could speak. “Look here, Arthur, you have lived your life in the shadow of others. Don’t deny it—you are the third son of a duke and could not help being thrust into mine or Anthony’s shadow. You were one of the Rogues of Regent Street, true, but you stood aside and watched
them
live. And you have complained to me on more than one occasion that the Christian Brothers’ Enterprise does not need you. Very well, then. It is time you lived for yourself, high time you sought your own meaning in life and perhaps improved the quality of it. Kettering said you had a fine time of it in Scotland, that you actually
liked
working the land. What do you have here that could possibly compare?”

Arthur was speechless.

He was speechless long after he left his brother’s study. He had offered no answer to Alex’s challenge, and Alex had let it lie. But as Arthur walked home along Audley Street, he was struck with the thought that perhaps Alex was right. He had never really lived, not like the others. He had often thought his life lacking somehow, as if there wasn’t enough to it to justify his existence.

But to Scotland?

Ah God, he missed her.
In spite of his anger, he missed her. And as much as he was loath to feel so, he was deathly worried about her. The foolish lass intended to hand herself over in some noble gesture to free Thomas. If he had known when she left, or
how
she left, he might have tried to stop her, but her head start was devastating to any hope of stopping her.

It was that which he was contemplating when he almost collided with a party of ladies out for an afternoon walkabout. The group of women startled him; he clumsily tipped his hat before he saw Portia among them, smiling up at him beneath her parasol.

“Lord Christian,” she purred. “What a delight.”

“Lady Roth,” he responded coolly, bowing, and greeted the three women who accompanied her.

“I am surprised to see you about. I had heard you were quite indisposed once your little friend had run back to Scotland.” The women giggled as Portia looked at him with a devilish glint in her eye.

How he despised her.
The woman was devious, calculating. He glanced at her three friends, all of whom he knew very well by reputation. They were no better than Portia, all of them sporting identical, knowing smiles. “You should take better care of whom you select as confidantes, Lady Roth. As you can see, I am quite well.”

“And we are very glad to see it, sir. I should hate to think of you pining away for some poor Scottish lassie.” The women tittered again, and Portia smiled so broadly that it creased the heavy cosmetics she had applied to her face.

Arthur smirked, tipped his hat again. “You are as considerate as always, Lady Roth. Good day, ladies.” He stepped around them and continued walking, aware of Portia’s low laughter behind him.

And as he strolled on, he silently agreed with Kerry. She could never fit in this world; she could never possess the gall it required. His world did an injustice to her and for the first time, Arthur wondered seriously why he couldn’t fit into hers. The days he had spent in Glenbaden had been some of the happiest of his life. He had felt like a man there, invincible, strong.

The idea teased him for the rest of the day. Over a solitary supper, Arthur reached an epiphany of sorts. As much as he was hurting, he truly did understand why Kerry did what she did—her integrity was one of the
things he so very much admired about her. And while he might quibble with the how of it, he had not exactly listened to her wishes. He had imposed what he thought was best, assuming she had no knowledge of what was best for herself. How bloody arrogant of him. And he knew of the familial bond that existed between her and Thomas, and damn well
should
have known that she would move heaven and earth to clear his name.

The truth was, he thought as he picked at the lamb on his plate, that he would do anything at this moment to have her back, including leaving behind everything that he was and all that he had for Scotland.

And why not? He had nothing to lose but himself.

G
LENBHAINN,
S
COTLAND

T
HE SEASON WAS
already beginning to turn in the Central Highlands of Scotland. From the small window of her cell, Kerry could see bright red, yellow, and orange leaves falling and skating across the small courtyard. With each leaf that fell, she wondered if she would live to see the trees in Glenbaden again.

Their trial would occur, Moncrieffe said, when the justice of the peace came through the Perthshire region to hear criminal matters. Maybe a fortnight. Maybe longer. She and Thomas would be tried together.

Thomas.
She had seen him for only a quarter of an hour before they had taken her away. Drawn and terribly thin, he had been shocked to see her, having believed her dead. He had been too overwhelmed with relief to tell her much, other than everything would be all right. At the time, she had believed him, because she had believed that once she explained what had happened, they would free Thomas.

But no.

Cameron Moncrieffe had leveled an accusation that she and Thomas were lovers, and had killed Charles so that Kerry would not have to honor her late husband’s agreement to marry the poor, simple lad.

It was an absurd accusation—there were several
people who knew the true relationship between Kerry and Thomas, and furthermore, had seen him leave with the cattle. Unfortunately, most of those people had left Glenbaden for good, and Kerry had no idea where Big Angus and May may have gone. Nonetheless, she naively believed that the truth would prevail, and she had tried to convince the sheriff who had brought her here that she had killed Charles in self-defense. But the more she insisted on the truth, the deafer he and Moncrieffe seemed to be. No one believed her—no one would
listen
to her.

So she and Thomas were to be tried for murder and the penalty for their crime was, as Moncrieffe had maliciously delighted in telling her, death by hanging. To emphasize that point, he had put her in the cell of an ancient tower on the Moncrieffe estate that overlooked the site on which they were building the gallows.

Alone in that cell, with nothing to amuse her but the changing season and the progress on the gallows, Kerry inevitably spent her days thinking of Arthur. She missed him terribly. Oh, she had forgotten all about the eviction—it had not taken her long to see that he was right, that Fraser had lost her land, not him. She believed what he told her about his role in it all.

The hardest thing she had ever done in her life was to leave without seeing him. But she could hardly blame him for not wanting to see her, not after she had refused to marry him in the manner that she had. She had been angry, confused … and even in the best of circumstances, it was impossible to explain to him how terribly ill suited she was for London. Arthur had moved in those circles all his life; he could not possibly fathom how foreign it was to someone like her, how out of place she seemed. How everyone, including his own lady aunt, had felt it, too.

Only Arthur had believed she would be accepted.

She missed him, cried herself to sleep almost every night thinking of him, and woke every morning longing
for his smile and soft caress. But then the matron would come with a bowl of what passed for oats, the cold seeping in through the thick walls of the tower would penetrate her bones, and she would begin her prayers all over again, until her thoughts bled into memories of Arthur.

How she had loved him.
And she would, apparently, go to her grave loving him.

On a particularly cold morning, her gaoler—Mrs. Muir, Kerry was finally able to coax out of her—brought a basin of cold water and a rag. “Yer to clean yerself up, lassie. The baron would speak with ye.”

Kerry moaned. Mrs. Muir lifted her thick brows and thrust a dirty rag forward. With inhuman strength, Kerry willed herself from the lumpy mattress that passed for a bed and walked to the basin.

She washed, managed to knot her hair at her nape by the time Moncrieffe sailed into her cell, seeming to fill what little space there was. He looked remarkably fresh; his gray hair was perfectly arranged; a diamond pin winked from his throat where it held his neckcloth in place. With his hands clasped behind his back, he slowly circled Kerry, thoroughly examining her.

He came to a halt in front of her. “A fortnight within these walls hasna done you any favors, Mrs. McKinnon. Yet I think you are salvageable.”

Kerry shrugged indifferently. “How kind of you to remark so. But why should you bother? You intend, do you not, to see me hang before winter comes?”

Moncrieffe smiled. “Rather an acerbic tongue for one in as much trouble as we find you, Mrs. McKinnon.”

Her patience had long since drained from her and Kerry was in no mood to play games with the baron. She folded her arms across her middle, drummed her fingers on one arm. “I am well aware of the sort of trouble
we
find ourselves in, my lord. If there is something you would say, I’d ask that you get on with it and spare me the childish games.”

The man actually laughed. He strolled casually to the
window and gazed out at the gallows construction. “Not a terribly good view, is it?” he asked idly, and turned around. “I suppose I could change this view for you, if I were of a mind.”

“Aye, and how would you do that?”

“Simply move you to a more suitable location, my dear.”

A silent warning flagged in her chest; her eyes narrowed. “And where might this ‘more suitable’ location be, then?”

Moncrieffe moved to where she stood, standing so close that she could smell the cloying scent of his cologne. He lifted his hand; with one finger, he stroked her cheekbone. “Moncrieffe House,” he murmured. “The view from the master suite is superb.”

Kerry instinctively recoiled in horror. Moncrieffe, however, was not abashed by her revulsion. He chuckled, caught her by the mess of her hair.

“Think, Mrs. McKinnon—your life for my bed. I shouldna think it such a horrid suggestion then,” he said, and leaned closer, his mouth brushing her hair. “You would delight in my skill as a lover.”