Too Wicked to Marry (7 page)

"What business do you have prying into Miss Perry's private affairs?"

"I am her employer," he answered.

"I am aware of that, Lord Martin."

He perked up. "She's spoken of me to you? What has she said?"

His eagerness was rather adorable. "Would it please you if I told you she said you are kind, witty, generous, and handsome?"

His stormy eyes suddenly shone with hope, tempered with suspicion. "It would please me," he acknowledged. "But she hasn't said any of those things, has she?"

"She has not."

"Don't test me, my lady, it is cruel."

"Test, not tease—what an interesting way of putting it." The man was clever enough, as well as useful and well thought of by the Crown, or he would not warrant special attention on his foreign assignments.

"You have every right to be suspicious of a stranger coming to inquire about a friend's whereabouts," he told her. "I truly need to know if she's come to you, for I am very concerned for her. She's disappeared," he rushed on, worry overcoming his ingrained civility at last. "She walked away from my home three days ago and has not been seen in the city since."

"Walked away." Phoebe rose to her feet. "Walked away? Why the devil would she do that?"
Rostovich! Dear God, it must have been Rostovich after all! He must have taken her and
—

"It was my fault, I'm afraid, Lady Phoebe."

"You?" Phoebe forced her calm veneer back in place. She truly was getting old to have the facade slip so easily. "Why do you say that, my lord?"

"I asked her to marry me."

Phoebe found herself gaping. "You did what?"

"Proposed. I told her how much I love her, and asked her to become my wife." He ducked his head and looked up at her through thick, dark lashes. "I'm afraid she didn't take it very well. She walked away from my house and has not been seen since."

"She didn't want to marry you?"

"So she said."

"But you don't believe her."

"Let's say that I'm not very good at taking no for an answer."

"You're rather famous for it," she agreed. "That is why the queen sends you to all those odd foreign places as her very special envoy."

"I have been told that I can talk anyone into anything."

"And you see Abigail Perry as your greatest challenge."

He gave her the smile of a man who enjoyed nothing more than a challenge. He rose to his feet as well. "It is very difficult to continue negotiations if one of the parties refuses to show up at the table, Lady Phoebe." He stepped close and took her hands in his.

She was not so old that she was unaffected by this gesture, and his very masculine presence. Pity the woman forced to live with the temptation the man must offer day in and day out, she thought, and barely hid an earthy smile that would have instantly put the lie to her spinster's demeanor. Poor Harriet probably hadn't had a chance. How long had she been in Kestrel's household? Four years, wasn't it? Harriet was a sensible, straitlaced sort, but even angels had been known to fall.

Could Harriet possibly have panicked and run off when faced with too much temptation? Was she so taken by surprise by a sudden declaration that she behaved like a fool? Harriet was no fool. Therefore, her great-niece was most likely in love. The most pragmatic people in the world went all to pieces when Cupid finally got to them. What a pity Kestrel wasn't the sort of person Harriet would think she was supposed to be in love with. As if love cared about what one was supposed to do.

It was a complicated situation, all things considered, and truth tended to be hard on such fragile things as emotions. Of course, Phoebe recalled, it wasn't as if the members of her family were not used to complicated romantic situations. Look at what Court and Hannah had worked through to find love. And who had set in motion the machinations that brought those two together? Why, none other than Europe's premier spymistress, of course.

Lady Phoebe very rarely let herself indulge in sentimentality, but she had a soft spot for her family—when she wasn't using them ruthlessly. She knew it would be wiser for her organization to send Lord Martin Kestrel away, but an urge to matchmake overtook her. Partly because she could use him to run the errand she'd summoned Harriet for, but mostly because she thought the man would look grand next to Harriet in a family portrait.

"It seems you think you are in love with Abigail," Phoebe said, looking him squarely in the eye. "But are you really in love with the woman? Do you really know her? Do you want to make her happy, or do you merely wish to win a debate? She is not a treaty, my lord, or a negotiable piece of property, but a complex and contradictory person. If it is the woman rather than an image of her that you love, perhaps I can be of some help to you."

She gave him some credit when he gave a thoughtful pause rather than answering her instantly. "I appreciate that you do not tell me that marrying Miss Perry is impossible."

"It might be," Phoebe said. "But that is for you and her to decide."

"Please help me find her, then," he said. "So that she and I can continue the discussion she broke off so abruptly. Where is she, Lady Phoebe?"

"I am not completely certain of where she is," she answered, completely honest for once. "But I can hazard a very good guess. She has most likely gone to Scotland."

"Scotland?"

"The Isle of Skye, to be precise, to a family named MacLeod. They have many children," Phoebe added. "Abigail had her training there."

"She was governess to the MacLeod children? I've never heard her mention them."

"She took care of the younger children for years. She is very close to the MacLeods, as am I." Never tell the whole truth when half truths would do; that was Phoebe Gale's philosophy, mixed with a sly sense of humor. "I will be happy to write an introduction to Sir Ian MacLeod for you if you wish to go to Skye to look for her."

He squeezed her hands and gave her a dazzling smile in gratitude. "Thank you, Lady Phoebe. How can I show my appreciation?"

"I do have a favor I'd like to ask, my lord."

"Anything."

"It is a simple task, and one involving the MacLeods. Would you mind acting as a courier for some correspondence I was planning on posting to Sir Ian and Lady MacLeod? It will arrive sooner and safer if carried by hand."

He lightly kissed the backs of her hands before letting them go. "A simple task, indeed," he said. "And one happily performed."

"I think, Mum, that I shall change my name."

Hannah had been certain that she'd approached the ruins at the top of the sheep pasture without making a sound, but Harriet, seated with her back turned, was aware of her all the same. Hannah gave her daughter points for her observation skills, and calmly asked, "What name are you thinking of?"

"Several come to mind. What do you think of Caprice?"

Hannah joined her daughter on the ancient, broken wall. Harriet's gaze remained fixed on a distant line of hills while Hannah spoke. "You don't seem the capricious type to me, Harriet."

"But it's such a pretty name."

"And memorable. Anonymity is the watchword for undercover work, remember?"

"I wasn't thinking about a new assignment, I was simply thinking about a change. I wish I was brave and strong and ruthless like you, Mum."

She put a hand on Harriet's shoulder. "Bad dreams again?" Harriet tensed alarmingly under her touch, but shook her head. She knew that her daughter sometimes brooded over what had happened in Austria, but didn't like to talk about it. "I wouldn't want you to change. Not when I've just gotten my own dear Harriet back. What is it, my melancholy one? Don't like being Harriet MacLeod very much right now? Or is it that you don't remember quite how to be yourself at the moment?"

Her daughter had been withdrawn, silent, and sad since returning home three
days before. Hannah wasn't sure if she needed to give her child more time to
work through whatever was so obviously bothering her, or if she needed to give a
loving but bracing lecture on coping with the vicissitudes life threw in one's
way. She did know she needed to find out exactly what had transpired to bring Harriet running back home in such a peculiar fashion.

"You must have missed the view," she said when time passed without Harriet answering her last question. "You've been up here every day since you've come home. It is a lovely place, but the wind's cool today," she added as she tucked her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

The foundation of the property's manor house was said to date all the way back to the days when Norsemen had colonized this island off the Scottish coast and named it Skye. The house, rebuilt and expanded many times over the centuries, sat tucked in a small, isolated wooded valley well out of sight of the Portree road. To reach Skye Court you had to first find the narrow track that led up the valley, then ford two streams that rushed down from the Storr along the way. In rainy weather those streams were sometimes dangerously swollen, and the weather was frequently rainy on Skye. One had to
want
to get to Skye Court.

The ruins where they sat were probably those of a medieval defense tower. From up here there was a fine view of the Sound of Raasay, with the Storr Plateau rising at their backs. Between the ruins and the patch of woods that hid the house was a huge green meadow, dotted equally with mossy boulders and a herd of sturdy Highland sheep. A pair of black and white collies raced around the edges of the herd, following the whistles and calls of the shepherd who stood by the drystone fence at the bottom of the hill.

"What about Gabrielle?" Hannah asked after another few minutes of silence passed between them.

Harriet turned a puzzled look on her. "Who's Gabrielle?"

"You could be, if you like, if you ever take a new assignment," Hannah said. "We were discussing your taking a new name."

"So we were," Harriet answered. She rubbed a spot between her eyes. "I have a headache. Don't like Gabrielle," she added, and sighed. "Sounds a bit like Abigail."

Not to Hannah's ear, but she didn't say so. Hannah was well aware that this particular daughter would not admit any sort of weakness to anyone but her. Hannah also knew better than to offer overt comfort or sympathy for Harriet's pain. Pain that was far more than mere headaches, she was sure. The girl had an utterly haunted look that sent worry and anger through Hannah. Whatever had that man done to her? She was certain Harriet's malaise was somehow connected to the toplofty Lord Martin Kestrel.

"What sort of assignment do you have in mind?" Harriet looked her mother in the face at last, and Hannah was disturbed to see the desperation that filled her daughter's eyes. "Something far away?" Harriet asked with a most unseemly eagerness. "I could use a change of pace."

Hannah held up a hand. "Steady on, dear. We have you home at last; let your family enjoy you for a while. Rest and enjoy your holiday away from your flighty ambassador."

"He isn't flighty," Harriet instantly defended the man. Then she shook her head. "Never mind. I don't want to talk about him."

"I see." Meaning, of course, that he was all she wanted to talk about. Interesting. Hannah waited patiently for the story to come out.