A Bewitching Bride (32 page)
Read A Bewitching Bride Online
Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
Sometimes, he wanted to gather her in his arms and soothe all her fears. Other times, he wanted to throttle her. He looked down at her. The shabby greatcoat that he’d purloined from the gatehouse dwarfed her small frame. Her dark hair was caught in the breeze and blew around her face in hopeless disorder. There was a smudge of coal dust on her nose. But it was the oddly vulnerable look in her eyes that told him far more than she knew. Everything inside him softened.
When she inhaled sharply, he looked up. “What is it, Kate? What’s troubling you?”
“They can’t be Templars’ ghosts, can they?” she whispered.
The line of men who appeared above them did seem otherworldly, but as they slowly picked their way down the hillside, what emerged were not Templars. “They’re tinkers,” he said, “you know, waifs and vagrants. Don’t you have tinkers in Braemar?”
“Of course, we do.” She burrowed deeper into her coat. “Poor devils. It’s usually warmer at this time of year. They must be freezing cold. Well, don’t just stand there. Give them a handful of silver. There will be children there, too, hiding with their mothers, not knowing where their next meal is coming from.”
He dug in his pocket and came up with a handful of silver. “This goes against my principles,” he said darkly. “Tinkers are nothing but rogues and tricksters. They could find something useful to do to feed their families instead of poaching and fishing where they have no business to be.”
She took his money from him. “They go where the fancy takes them,” she said, “and answer to no one but themselves.” She gave him a superior grin. “You should admire them. After all, you have much in common.”
He hung back, a bemused smile on his face as she climbed toward the little band of men. In her shabby greatcoat, she could easily have passed for one of them.
When she stomped down the hill to join him, her lips formed a perfect pout. “You fraud!” she said, glowering up at him. “They know you! That nice Mr. Hepburn who allows them to fish on his estate!”
He replied modestly, “I didn’t recognize them in this half-light. Is that Wee Alfie, their leader?”
“You know it is!”
When he waved, the tinkers returned the compliment.
She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and blew at the stray tendrils of hair in a vain attempt to blow them from her eyes.
Perfect.
She
was perfect. He knew that he would hold this image of her for a long, long time.
She
was perfect. He knew that he would hold this image of her for a long, long time.
His mood was not so mellow when the lodge he shared with his brother came into view. They’d sent the coach back to Aberdeen when they came to the bridge across the Dee at Ballater. He’d made the walk a million times and thought nothing of it, but it had started to rain, and the wa1k uphill seemed to have stretched into twice its usual length.
Other things were beginning to occur to him. The lodge was a masculine preserve, unfit for female habitation or, he amended, unfit for someone like Kate. He couldn’t remember when the lodge had had a good clearing out or even a dusting. It was too big for his man, Calley, to manage on his own. When company was expected, they hired local people to do the work, but that hadn’t happened in an age.
He cast a sideways glance at Kate. She’d hardly said a word on the long trek to the house, and that made him nervous. “I’m sorry for the long walk to the house,” he said, “but I had to send the coach back at Ballater. We don’t want the police or our villain to know that we’re here, not yet anyway.”
Between gasps brought on by climbing the steep incline to the house, she got out, “Yes, you already told me. Just get me to a hot bath and a change of clothes, and I’ll forgive you.”
“My sister-in-law is about your size, and I know she left some of her things in one of the bedchambers.”
She nodded absently and looked back over her shoulder. Across the river, she could just make out the village of Ballater. When she turned to look at the house, she shaded her eyes against the setting sun to get a better look. The lodge was a smaller version of the Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar, but there was something about this building that brought a lump to her throat. A safe stronghold for its inhabitants, she thought.
Or was it?
This would never do. She was becoming teary, and she never cried. She didn’t have to look far to know what the matter was. The night before, she’d found the sweetest solace in his arms. What was the matter with men? Was making love only an appetite that had to be relieved until they were hungry again? Why didn’t he make some reference to what they’d done in their bed?
Aware that he was watching her, she said gaily, “Last time I passed your lodge, there was a wild party in progress. There were scantily clad young women screaming with laughter and equally scantily clad young men weaving among the trees trying to catch them.”
“What? When was this?”
She gave a theatrical sigh. “I must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. A group of us girls from school were celebrating Juliet’s birthday and spending the weekend at her house. It’s not far from here, is it?”
“No,” he replied curtly. “Not far.”
“Well,” she went on with relish, “Juliet thought it would make a great adventure to creep out of the house when her mother was asleep and spy on the goings-on of the wild Hepburn brothers.”
One corner of his mouth began to twitch. “I’m surprised that Mrs. Cardno didn’t insist on going with you.”
“I think Juliet put something in her tea to make her sleep.”
“Yes, Juliet would.”
“Too bad she caught you in flagrante delicto, so to speak, or she might have married you instead of Mr. Steele.”
A picture of himself chasing half-naked young women ran through his mind. “It never happened,” he said. “We rent the place out to hunting parties occasionally. You must have visited the lodge when my brother and I were away.” He held up an index finger to prevent her from speaking. “I know for a fact that Juliet’s birthday is in September, and I am usually in London then.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly sure. That is when the hunting season is in full swing, and I cannot abide hunting poor defenseless creatures who have done me no harm.”
“You eat fish, don’t you?”
“That’s different. I don’t put bullets in them or maim them so they can’t fend for themselves if they get away. So, how did you hear about the wild party I was supposed to host?”
She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “It was only a story going around, a delectable tidbit for us girls to add to our store of legends about Feughside’s infamous flirt. You see, you held a sort of fearful fascination for us. You were an older man, too old to notice us, but we noticed you.”
“You must have been a precocious brat as an adolescent.” He had her by the elbow and was marching her to the front door.
“No. Not really. I was rather shy.”
The front door was opened by a well-built gentleman with a hint of the cloister about him. Kate could imagine him on his knees, saying his prayers.
“This is my man, Calley,” Gavin said.
Whatever he was going to say next was drowned out by the barking of the dog, who came tearing down the stairs to fling himself against his master’s legs. Gavin went down on his haunches and scratched behind his dog’s ears. “Yes, I’ve missed you, too, boy,” he said.
Macduff did a little jig and spared Kate a few wet licks on her hands, but it was to Gavin that the dog gave his most tumultuous welcome.
Kate found herself smiling, then yawning, then shivering. Gavin rose. “Come along, Mrs. Hepburn,” he said. “I’ll show you to our room.” To his manservant, he said, “A hot bath for my wife as soon as it can be arranged.”
Not a flicker of surprise crossed Calley’s stoic face. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Kate’s fatigue was beginning to tell on her, and she could do no more than follow where she was led. As meek as a child, she allowed Gavin to bathe her and put her to bed. It was only when he tried to turn away that she stirred and latched on to his wrist, so he sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her grip to relax. By degrees, she drifted into sleep.
Odd snatches of conversation came to him. He’d called her precocious, but that, of course, couldn’t have been the case, not when she was tormented by thoughts of her mother’s insanity and her own gifts as a witch. She’d said that she was shy. The picture that came to him, however, was of a young girl who had isolated herself because she didn’t fit in. She’d learned that the world could be a cold, callous place for misfits.
All his life he’d been petted and pampered and he had taken it for granted. At home, at school, with women, he had both expected and received a warm welcome. Naturally, he made friends easily, unlike Kate, who wouldn’t take the chance of getting too close to people in case they hurt her.
Something fierce moved inside him, something fierce and sweet. They had been thrown together by his grandmother’s prophecy. Kate had had no choice but to learn to trust him. He had learned something from the experience as well. Easy wasn’t always best. Some things were worth a good deal of friction, frustration, and old-fashioned patience. God help him if he did anything to hurt her. Courting Miss Cameron was proving to be one of the hardest tests he had ever set for himself.
“Rule number one,” he said under his breath. “No touching without her permission.”
Macduff cocked his head as though his master had spoken in a foreign tongue.
“Rule number two,” Gavin went on softly. “Always treat her with the utmost respect.”
He shut his mouth before he could voice the next rule. To Macduff, he said, “What a dull dog I’m turning out to be.” He made a face. “Actions speak louder than words, or so I’ve heard. Let that be my true test.”
She was sleeping soundly, her breathing slow and even. He allowed himself one chaste kiss on her cheek and got up.
“Guard her,” he told Macduff. “Guard her with your life.”
Macduff was already at the foot of the bed. He shook himself off and placed himself between the bed and the door.
Gavin shut the door soundlessly and went downstairs to have a word with Calley.
Twenty-two
“How long before Dalziel gets here?” Kate asked Gavin on the morning after they arrived.
His sister-in-law’s twill gown, he was happy to see, seemed a good fit. “Tomorrow or the next day,” he answered easily.
“And after that? What happens then?”
He was silent as he contemplated her.
She answered her own question. “It ends here, doesn’t it? You always meant it to end here.” Her restless gaze moved around his study before returning to him. “How will you know who he is?”
He indicated that she should take the chair on the other side of his desk. When she was seated, he said carefully, “I’m hoping that Dalziel will give me enough information to reveal the killer, but even if he doesn’t, this is an isolated spot. If anyone who was at the Deeside Hotel the night Will was killed shows his face, I think it’s safe to say that we’ll have our man.”
“You mean . . . I’m the bait to lure him out into the open?”
He leaned across his desk and gathered her hands in his. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him look so serious. “I never wanted it to come to this,” he said, “but no, I’ll keep you safe. Have faith, Kate. You know that he will have to kill me to get to you, and that isn’t going to happen.”
“Because of your grandmother’s prophecy,” she fairly snapped.
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” was his gentle rejoinder.
She wasn’t only afraid for herself. She was afraid for him. She pulled her hands from his and rubbed her arms where goose bumps had broken out.
“What is it, Kate?” he asked.
She didn’t know. Shaking her head, she said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this.” Her mind traveled back to the convent. “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt hunted. My mother protected me then. Now you’re going to take her place? It doesn’t make sense. Twenty years have passed since I left the convent. Who would hate me enough to nurse a grievance for so long? Why not kill me long before now?”
He answered at once, “Because you changed your identity? Because you became Kate Cameron and disappeared from the face of the earth? I’m only speculating, you understand. Something must have happened to make it imperative that he find you.”
She was silent for a long time as she considered his words. Finally, she said, “So we wait.”
“So we wait.”
She jumped to her feet and began to pace. “So what do we do in the meantime? I’m used to being busy. I can’t sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day.”
“It’s not safe for us to show ourselves during the daylight hours,” he said. “We don’t know who may be watching us, but there’s nothing to stop us going for a walk when the sun sets.”
Her fingers curled around the back of her chair. “What if he comes for us then? This is a big house. It would need a small army to defend it.”
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