Too Wicked to Marry (8 page)

Harriet twisted her hands nervously together in her lap and looked out at the distant view of the sea again. "Mum?"

"Yes, love?"

"I have something to confess." Harriet sighed. "I did not come home just for a month's holiday."

"Ah." Hannah put her hand on Harriet's shoulder. "I suspected as much."

Harriet gave her a half-amused sideways glance. "Was your clue my stumbling home looking like something the cat dragged in?"

"I thought perhaps your luggage had been lost in transit."

"You're a very good liar, Mum. Always the unflappable matriarch welcoming the chicks back to the nest."

"Thank you, love. Pity your brothers Christopher and Michael haven't made their scheduled migrations yet. I've been looking forward to having a full nest for a while this summer. Christopher's finally coming home from America, but we don't expect him for a few days yet. Michael should have been home from university by now, like his twin, but he probably got distracted chasing a bit of skirt—"

"Mother!" Harriet gave the faintest of laughs.

"Well, I'm not an innocent, am I? I know my boys. Aunt Phoebe sent him off on an errand to France after his classes were done, and had some other errand for him after that, I think. A handsome, wicked and charming lad like that loose in the fleshpots of Paris?" She chuckled. "I almost pity the ladies."

"Other people don't have wicked mothers," Harriet answered. "I pity them."

Harriet's brief good humor evaporated like a mist on the moors and Hannah waited through another interval of dismal silence. She watched a hawk circle above the ruins overhead and the collies chasing around the edges of the flock down on the ground. She didn't think Harriet noticed any of the busy world around them, lost as she was in her own personal troubles. Her daughter was too conscientious not to have reported any professional problems the moment she walked in the door three days ago.

Harriet finally emerged from her reverie once more to ask, "What did you think when you first saw me?"

"I thought you'd finally needed to use the trick I taught you about keeping travel money tucked into your shoes, and came flying home for sanctuary. I knew you'd tell me what and why in your own good time."

Harriet chuckled. "No doubt you've been keeping Papa from marching up to me and bluntly demanding what's the matter since I first got home."

How very true. "Your father and I are both concerned. We hate seeing one of our chicks sad."

"I hate being sad," Harriet answered. She made a small, desperate gesture. "I have no right to be sad. And it makes me feel so dull and useless, like someone wrapped me up in soggy wool blankets and left me in a dark closet." She sighed. "And it hurts. Everything hurts." Hannah did not think that Harriet noticed that she'd pressed her hand over her heart while she spoke. Her daughter's gaze wrenched Hannah's heart. "I'm lonely," her daughter said. "In the midst of the place and people I love above all else, I am so lonely. Why is that, Mum?"

This was bad. Very bad indeed. Hannah laid the trouble squarely at the door of Lord Martin Kestrel, certain she had no need for any other suspects. "What did that awful man do to you?" she asked her daughter. "Did he try to seduce you? Did he succeed?" If that dastardly cur had dared lay a hand on her baby chick, she'd flay him alive.

Harriet shook her head. "Oh, no, much worse than mat."

"Worse?" Horrid suspicion took hold in Hannah's mind. "What could be worse than being seduced and abandoned by that—"

"He asked me to marry him."

A tear trickled down Harriet's pale cheek. Hannah MacLeod brushed it away, and took her daughter's cold hands in hers. She'd feared something like this would happen.

"You're right," she said. "That is worse."

"There's a man outside."

Mrs. Swift's gruff voice drew Court's attention. He looked up over his reading glasses at the grim-faced housekeeper standing squarely before the library desk. Mrs. Swift was thin as a rail, tough as old leather, and looked even more disapproving than she usually did.

"A stranger," he guessed from her expression. "Did he give a name?"

Mrs. Swift handed over a calling card and stepped back with her thin arms folded tightly across her narrow waist. Disapproval radiated from her like the heat of a furnace blast. Mrs. Swift didn't like strangers. In that, she and Court were in complete agreement.

"What the devil's he doing here?" Court demanded after reading the name and titles of this unexpected visitor.

"Just so," Mrs. Swift said, giving a decisive nod. "I'll tell 'im to shove off, then."

"No," Court told her as she turned toward the library door. "Best find out why he's here. Show him in."

"Hmph," she responded, but marched out to reluctantly do as he bid.

While he waited Court closed the book, put away his glasses, and composed himself to the appearance of a mild-mannered country squire. He folded his hands together on the desktop and called, "Come," when a sharp rap sounded on the door a few moments later. "That will be all, Mrs. Swift," he added when the housekeeper gave every appearance of following Lord Martin Kestrel into the room.

Kestrel stalked in, mud-spattered and disheveled, and looking thoroughly irritated. No doubt the difficult journey from the village and being made to cool his heels by Mrs. Swift had done nothing to soothe the Englishman's mood.

Upon seeing Court, he brushed stray strands of black hair off his forehead and assumed a mild, friendly air as he approached the desk. "Good day, Sir Ian. Thank you for seeing me."

The man did a fine job of controlling his temper, but Court was well aware of Kestrel's strong emotions seething just under the bland mask.

Before Court could offer any greeting, Kestrel took a packet of papers from a case he carried under his arm and held them out, presenting them for inspection like an ambassador offering credentials at a foreign court. When Court did not take the documents immediately, Kestrel placed them on the desk in front of him. The letter on top of the pile was from Phoebe Gale.

As Court picked it up, Kestrel said, "A letter of introduction from a mutual acquaintance, Sir Ian. My reason for imposing on your hospitality might seem a bit odd, and I hope Lady Phoebe's kind words will ease any strain and embarrassment on all sides."

"Perhaps they will," Court said coolly, picking up a very sharp silver letter opener and slitting the top of the envelope. "If you'd let me read the letter."

"Of course, Sir Ian, I—No. We have to talk, man to man." Kestrel leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the desktop, his muscles tense as stone.

Court rose to his feet to look the man in the eye. There was a dangerous edge in the stranger's manner, but Court did not feel the least intimidated. Irritated, yes. The last place Kestrel should be was at Skye Court, and he had every intention of seeing the man on his way as swiftly as possible. "Young man, if you would kindly—"

"I really don't have time for the niceties after coming so far," the world-renowned diplomat snapped. "Where's Abigail? I've come to take her home, and that's all there is to it."

Court kept his expression carefully blank. "Abigail?"

"Miss Abigail Perry. Lady Phoebe told me she would come here."

"And what," Court inquired, mild words masking rising ire, "is Abigail Perry to you?"

"My governess."

"I would not think a man of your years would require a governess."

"My daughter's governess."

"Did you bring your daughter with you?"

"What? No. Of course not."

"Then I don't see why you think you require the services of a governess."

Martin could see that this Sir Ian MacLeod was being deliberately, infuriatingly obtuse and obstructive. He had not come all this way, especially the last several, wretched, bone-wrenching miles, to be thwarted at the last moment so close to his goal. "I have private business with Miss Perry," he said, as calmly as he could manage. "Please read the letter in your hand."

When he was done reading, Sir Ian slowly stroked his chin. He spoke with equal slowness, appearing completely puzzled. "Why would Lady Phoebe send you here?"

The man was a fine actor, Martin concluded as he looked at the man on the other side of the desk, but Martin was certain MacLeod knew why Lady Phoebe had directed Martin to his home. Sir Ian was a big, square-built man, still fit, and with a thick head of hair though he must be somewhere in his fifties. There was a familiar look to the man's eyes Martin found disturbing. They were light eyes, blue-green, the sort of eyes that changed color depending on surroundings and mood. Right now they were the green of an angry ocean, totally at odds with Sir Ian's perplexed expression.

"
I
am concerned about Miss Perry's welfare," Martin said.

"That is commendable."

"I need to know that she arrived here safely. That she is well. I need to know why—"

Martin bit off the words. He did not know what Abigail had told her former employer, and did not wish to jeopardize her relationship with the MacLeod family. He was so frustrated he wanted to ransack the room or leap across the desk to shake her whereabouts from the other man. When Abigail had first disappeared, he'd almost welcomed pursuing her as a challenge his jaded wits desperately needed, but the hunt had soon stopped being an intellectual exercise. The longer he was away from her, the stronger became the desperate ache to touch her, hold her, keep her. His need for this one elusive woman was frightening in its intensity. He was obsessed, and he didn't care.

And he had had quite enough of being thwarted by all these guardians at the gates. First Lady Phoebe and now this rustic squire stood between him and the woman he wanted.

"See, here, my good man," he said. "All you need to do is send for the woman so I can talk to her."

Sir Ian gave a chuckle that had very little amusement in it. "Well, aren't you the lord of the glen? No, I don't think I—"

Sir Ian's words were cut off as the library door opened. Martin turned hopefully at the swish of skirts, but the woman he saw in the doorway was not Abigail, though for a moment he thought she was. Hope had marred his vision, he supposed, though the woman was of a similar height, build, and coloring to Abigail. This newcomer, attractive though she was, was closer to Sir Ian's age, her dark hair frosted with strands of silver. She wore a plaid wool shawl and there were moisture and grass stains on the hem of her dove-gray skirt.

She looked Martin over with a clear, critical gaze, and said, "You're Kestrel, aren't you?"

"My dear," Sir Ian said quickly, warningly.

She ignored Sir Ian and kept her steady gaze on Martin. "You'll find her up at the ruins," she told him. "Go through the back garden and through the pasture. You can't miss the place."

Martin could have waltzed the woman around the room and kissed her thoroughly. He smiled at her instead, and offered a fervent thank you on his way out.

Court would have followed, but Hannah shut the door and leaned against it to block his way. "What was that about?" he demanded of his wife. "I was about to send the man packing. The last thing Harriet needs is to see him."

Hannah smiled, infuriatingly inscrutable. "The last thing she wants—oh, I quite agreeùbut I doubt if it's the last thing she needs. And I must say I admire the man's being able to track her down."

"It wasn't cleverness," Court answered, gesturing toward the desk. "Phoebe used him as a messenger for that packet of papers. He has no idea who our daughter really is and I wasn't about to tell him."

"I should hope not. That is between them."

"
That
is a state secret."

"Nonsense." She waved his words away. "More of a family secret, now that Aunt Phoebe's seen fit to send him all the way to
Skye Court. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but Harriet's been pining for that young man." She put a hand against his chest when he tried to get by her to open the door. "Yes, I know, dear," she soothed. "You don't like him—he has a bad reputation with women, abysmal taste in wives, he gambles and keeps bad company, and, oh, yes, he's English. But what you like and what suits Harriet are two different things."

"He doesn't suit Harriet."

"Possibly not, but it isn't up to us. Why don't we have a look at the papers Aunt Phoebe sent? I'm sure they are important."

"They're in code."

"Then we'll send for Beatrice to help us. Crown business comes before family business, remember?"

Court didn't like being handled, manipulated, or distracted by anyone, but he also knew when Hannah would have her way, no matter what. He frowned mightily as he chucked her under the chin. "You'll pay for this, lass."

This growled threat got him no more than a saucy grin, and "Oh, goody."

Wicked woman. He kissed her, then went back to sit at his desk. "Call Beatrice," he said. "I'll wait here and worry about our other daughter."