Claimed by the Laird

CHAPTER FIVE

DAMNATION.

Christina loved her father, but there were times when she could happily wring his neck, and this was one of them. She closed the door of her private parlor behind her with exaggerated calm and sank down into her favorite armchair. For a moment she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of wax polish and roses mingled with the faint smell of dust and the ashes in the grate. It was quiet, reassuring. For a little while she felt soothed, comfort flowing through her and easing her tense muscles. Then she remembered Lucas’s smile—and the fact that he was now a member of the staff at Kilmory Castle, which was precisely the outcome she had not wanted.

She opened her eyes and blinked, rubbing her forehead where the beginnings of a headache stirred. She told herself that it did not matter; Lucas was clearly very keen to have a job at Kilmory. He would do nothing to put that at risk.

She was a fool to think he’d risk his future by kissing her again. Lucas Ross was a great deal younger than she was and sinfully handsome. Of course he would not be attracted to an old maid. Their passionate encounter the night before had been driven by a wild relief and the vivid excitement of being alive. Now, in the cold light of day, everything was different, and she should welcome that because lust, passion, held no place in her life.

There were no mirrors in her parlor. In fact, when they had moved to Kilmory Castle, she had removed several of the ancient speckled pier glasses from the walls because she did not want to see her reflection forever staring back at her. She knew what she looked like: a thirty-three-year-old spinster in elegant but not particularly modish gowns whose hair was neither auburn nor brown nor blond but some sort of mixture of all three, whose eyes were pale blue and fanned by fine lines that grew less fine and more deep as the years passed, whose complexion had lost its youthful sparkle and whose chin was already showing signs of sagging. In fact, everything was showing signs of sagging, as it did with age. She had no illusions, and before the previous night she had had no desire to look any different. Her appearance had been almost irrelevant to her. Her sisters were the beautiful ones.

Now, though, Lucas’s youth and vitality made her keenly aware of the passing years. She felt old and faded, and ashamed of feeling so fierce an attraction to him. She knew that her late mother’s dearest friend, Lady Kenton, would laugh at her for such scruples. Lady Kenton firmly believed that a view was there to be admired. But Christina did not want to feel anything for Lucas. She did not want to feel anything for any man. It was too risky. She, who took risks with her life and her personal safety every day when it came to outwitting the revenue officers, was too scared to risk her heart again.

A politely deferential knock at the door roused her. It must be Mr. Bevan, the land agent, early for their meeting. But before Christina could call him in, the door opened and Galloway poked his head in.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but Mr. Eyre is here to see you.”

Christina felt a sharp stab of alarm. Mr. Eyre was the exciseman, the government’s tax collector, who hounded the local families mercilessly for every last penny they owed. Possessed of a zealous desire to drain every drop of revenue from Kilmory’s farmers and villagers, he had threatened to arrest the illegal whisky distillers and see them hang.

“Please tell Mr. Eyre that I have an appointment in ten minutes and cannot spare him the time—” she began, only for Eyre to shoulder his way past Galloway and barge into the room.

“This won’t take long, Lady Christina.” He was a big man, florid, with small gray eyes in a fleshy face. His gaze darted about the room as though checking to see that she had not concealed an illegal whisky still beneath the table. “Still consorting with criminals and smugglers, I hear.”

“I beg your pardon?” Christina’s voice dripped ice.

Eyre, however, was not a man to be intimidated. He thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, smiling. “I saw you entering Mrs. Keen’s cottage yesterday. Her son was arrested for illegal distilling back last year—”

“Which is one of the reasons why I visit her.” Christina did not trouble to hide her dislike. “She is an elderly woman, in poor health, alone in the world, who has little income and who has been persecuted unforgivably by the authorities.”

Eyre snapped his fingers. “She should not have harbored a known criminal, then.”

Christina could feel her temper rising. She knew that Eyre deliberately set out to anger her; he had been an enemy ever since she had written to Lord Sidmouth to complain about his methods and his corruption. It was always a struggle not to rise to his provocation.

“Was there a point to your visit, Mr. Eyre?” she inquired politely.

“Indeed.” The excise officer’s eyes gleamed. “I am here to introduce my nephew, Richard Bryson, my sister’s boy, who has come to help me hunt down the malefactors who plague our area. I am confident that with his help and the other resources granted to me by Lord Sidmouth, we shall soon have the Kilmory Gang behind bars.”

“How gratifying for you,” Christina said. She had not seen the younger man who was hovering in his uncle’s shadow, but now he came forward into the room and made a bow.

“At your service, Lady Christina.”

This was a very different man from his uncle. He was young, surely no more than twenty, slight and fair, with dreamy brown eyes and the hands of a musician. His bow was elegant; he could have stepped from an Edinburgh drawing room. His uncle was looking at him with ill-concealed contempt. Christina wondered how on earth the two of them could possibly work together and why a man like Richard Bryson would want to take on the dirty task of the excise officers. But perhaps he had no choice. She thought of Lucas Ross again and how inappropriate it was that he was a servant. A man had to earn a living, no matter how incongruous it might seem or how ill suited to it he might be.

“I wish you success in your career, Mr. Bryson,” she said. She gave his uncle a cool smile. “If you will excuse me...”

As Galloway ushered the gentlemen out, she wondered at Eyre. There was not a courteous bone in his body. His visit had been for quite another purpose, to warn her, perhaps, of his intent to increase his efforts at trapping the whisky smugglers. He suspected her of more than sympathy toward the smuggling gang.

Christina shivered. His visit had been a threat. Of that there was no doubt. She was going to have to be very careful indeed.

* * *

THE SUMMER LIGHT was fading as Lucas left the servants’ hall to stroll back to his tiny cottage in the castle grounds. Dinner had been delicious, a rich lamb stew with dumplings that had been just what he had needed after working up an appetite digging over the flower beds. He had been at Kilmory for three days and already he was settling in to the routine of his work. It was physically hard but not challenging in other ways; he simply had to keep his head down, watch, listen and not put a foot out of line.

The servants were wary of him. A stranger who looked and sounded as though he should be serving tea in an Edinburgh drawing room rather than digging up root crops in the Highlands was bound to be treated carefully. Word had gone round of his failure to obtain the footman’s post—a boy called Thomas Wallace looking shiny and scrubbed in his new livery was proudly sitting in the footman’s chair. There was a whiff of uncertainty about Lucas’s background that he chose not explain, though the reference from the Duchess of Strathspey that had arrived that afternoon had helped to soothe any concerns. Galloway at least was now treating him as though he was less likely to steal the silver.

Lucas was quite happy for people to think him dour and uncommunicative, though he had stayed to share the pot of tea after dinner when jackets were loosened and conversation warmed up a little. From this he had learned something of the family, which, whilst not directly useful to his work, was still interesting. Angus, the heir to the dukedom, was generally disliked as a bully. His wife, Gertrude, was actively hated for her interfering ways. Everyone shook their heads when Lachlan’s name was mentioned. He had a problem with drink, Lucas heard, and also with his wife, a she-devil called Dulcibella who held the purse strings and was shriller than a Glasgow costermonger. Mention of the duke made them smile with exasperation. But Christina was loved. Their affection for her was simple and powerful and it took Lucas aback. As he strolled back through the castle grounds he wondered what Christina had done to earn their loyalty.

When he reached the relative privacy of the gardeners’ cottages he took from his pocket the letter that Galloway had passed to him after dinner.

“From the Duchess of Strathspey herself,” Galloway had said, with a mixture of respect and disapproval, as though Lucas should have been far too lowly for a duchess to take notice of him.

Lucas let himself inside and unfolded the letter to read. He did not light a lamp; instead, he tilted it to catch the last flare of twilight.

“Lucas,” his aunt had written in her forthright manner.

What on earth is going on? I have written you a glowing reference—naturally—but would appreciate some sort of explanation of your new interest in horticulture. Have you lost all your money? Are you really working as an under gardener to the Duke of Forres? Could you not do better than that? Please try to remember you are my nephew—and a prince, for that matter—and aim a little higher.

She had signed off with her usual strong black flourish.

Lucas grinned. He had known that his aunt would not let him down. He knew she was no snob, either. And he did owe her an explanation.

He took out a pencil from his pocket and scrawled back:

Thank you, ma’am. I am in your debt, as always. Business brings me to Kilmory, but I find it more useful for the time being to keep that business a secret, hence the role of gardener. I can only hope that I do not inadvertently kill off the entire ducal flower garden in the process.

He signed it and placed it under the chipped enamel jug on the dresser. Tomorrow he would contrive an errand to Kilmory Village and find a carter to take it to Strathspey. He did not want to send it from the castle. That was too dangerous.

He went through to the inner of the cottage’s two rooms and threw himself down on the narrow iron bedstead. His aunt was no fool; she had known of Peter’s death and she would work out quickly enough what he was doing at Kilmory. She would not approve. He doubted she would give him away, but no doubt like Jack Rutherford she would also think it a fool’s errand, that because of his grief he was unable to accept Peter’s death and let the matter go.

The duchess would laugh to see him now, he thought as he stared up at the pallor of the whitewashed ceiling. His surroundings were neither princely nor palatial, two rooms, this one with a wooden chest and a heather-stuffed mattress and the other with a table, two chairs, a dresser and a few other sticks of furniture. Outside there was a stone sink for washing. It was a far cry indeed from his grandfather’s palace. Still, it was clean and dry. Someone had made nice curtains and matching patchwork cushions that sat rather daintily on the upright chairs. There were a couple of rag rugs on the flagstone floor. Lucas wondered who had gone to the trouble of furnishing the place, making it appear as though they cared enough for their servants to see them comfortable.

He thought of Christina MacMorlan. He had promised Jack that he would not involve her in this business but that was before he had learned that she was already involved up to her neck. And she had something he needed. Information.

He felt no stirring of conscience. Conscience was something that rarely troubled him. In general he was comfortable with the decisions he made and this was no exception.

It would not hurt to take advantage of Lady Christina’s attraction to him. She had been all that was starchy and proper on the surface, but even so she had not been quite able to hide the fact that she was drawn to him. That was good; he would exploit that attraction to learn what he could. He would use her.

He slept well that night.

CHAPTER SIX

“I SAY,” LADY Allegra MacMorlan drawled, propping herself against the stone window embrasure in the parlor and gazing out at the garden, “what an absolutely splendid view.”

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