After Midnight (2 page)

"A woman!" Gordon exploded.

Angus didn't flinch. "In truth, two, master."

Gordon's dark eyes widened in disbelief. "Two women?"

"Aye. She brought… a traveling companion, master."

"A traveling companion? A traveling companion?"

Gordon strode across the cluttered library. "How could this error have possibly occurred?" He stubbed his toe on a wooden crate he'd yet to unpack. Pain shot up his foot and he hopped on the other.

Angus continued to stare straight ahead. "I do not ken, master."

"By the wife of a drunken MacDonald, I say again, how did this happen?" He flung a hand in the air. "I was very careful. I hired an E. Bruce MacDougal without family. A good Scottish name—" He glanced at Angus. "Though I can say I never cared much for the MacDougals of Nairn. Big as oxen, but wee brains."

"Aye, master."

Gordon halted in mid-stride, brushing back the shoulder length of hair that fell over his eyes. "Aye
what
, for haggis sake? Aye, you don't know how this happened, or
aye
, the MacDougals are dumb as pruning sheers?"

Angus's gaze never strayed. "Aye tae both, master."

Gordon stared for a moment at his manservant. He didn't know why he put up with Angus, except that no one else but the fisherman had answered his bid for employment in the last one hundred and fifty years. It seemed no one needed a job badly enough to set foot on Fraser Island, which in truth, Gordon could nay blame them. No, Angus annoyed him, but it annoyed him even more to haul his own water from the well in the courtyard and to cook his own meals.

With an exasperated huff, Gordon went back to pacing. "Well, just…just send her back.
Them
back."

"I canna, master."

Gordon turned around sharply and caught his shoulder on another wooden crate, this one standing higher than he was tall. "Ouch!" He rubbed his shoulder beneath his new blue velvet frock coat.

Angus waited patiently for Gordon to cease cursing. "Will there be anything else, master?"

Gordon groaned. "This is a fine predicament we're in, Angus." He glanced up. "Well, see to dinner as we discussed, and set a plate for Miss MacDougal's companion."

"Aye, master."

Somehow Angus managed to back out of the library, through the maze of boxes and crates, leaving Gordon alone to his woes.

Ruth held tightly to Emily's hand as the two women wound their way through the castle toward the great hall. Emily held a candle high to light their way in the darkness.

"I think I'd rather take my meal in our room," Ruth whispered.

Emily squeezed her hand. She was a no-nonsense person and certainly was not afraid of the dark. "You'd best put your romance novel aside, Ruth. It's affecting your brain. Surely you didn't expect Edison's electricity in Scotland!"

"A handful of tallow candles would suffice."

The women's footsteps echoed hollowly on the stone floor and off the walls. Ahead, light spilled from an arched, flying-buttress doorway. Gargoyle faces grinned from above the door.

"They're watching us," Ruth whispered.

"Who?"

"Them." She pointed to the wall.

Emily lifted her candle higher to study the portraits that lined the walls on both sides of the corridor. Men in stiff ruff collars and women with headdresses and strings of jewels sat stiffly in pose. Emily thought they were as enchanting as the rest of the castle and wondered who they all were. The Laird of Fraser's ancestors, no doubt.

"Look, there's Igor."

"Angus," Emily whispered under her breath. "Really, Ruth, you're quite impossible."

The unearthly manservant stood in the lighted doorway, staring into the darkness, but not directly at the women. He stepped back, drawing his hand to usher them in.

Emily expected to find her employer waiting in the great hall and was disappointed to discover that he'd not yet arrived. She was looking forward to an evening of scholarly discussion.

The room was large and airy, and to Ruth's liking, no doubt, well lit, with candelabras everywhere. A long, polished wood table had been set for three place settings with exquisite antique china from the Orient.

Emily released her companion's hand, setting the candlestand on a small Persian table. "It's beautiful," she murmured, turning slowly in a circle. The walls stretched high to a painted plaster ceiling that domed nearly twenty-five feet overhead. The paintings depicted Greek and Roman mythology.

Unimpressed, Ruth walked to the table and lifted a plate to study the back. "He has good taste in dishes. These must be at least a hundred years old."

"Ruth," Emily reprimanded. "Put down the plate before you break it. How will it look to the laird if he finds us authenticating his china?"

"Most likely he'll think I'm checking to be certain he can afford to pay you. Which I am. And I would guess he can. Your Scotsman is very rich."

Emily took the plate from Ruth's hand and returned it to its place. "I don't care how wealthy he is. I'm here to provide a service."

"He could be
the
one, "Ruth teased in a whisper. "I keep telling you, you work for enough frogs, surely one of these days one will make you his princess."

Emily ran her fingers along a Cyprus sea chest that looked Italian in design, and very, very old. "I told you. I'm not looking for a husband." She smoothed the bodice of her plain, but sensible, pale blue brocade evening gown. It was the only good dress she'd brought. The other two were plain and practical, like herself. "I've a career. Money of my own. I don't need a husband and certainly not one old enough to be my grand-daddy. "

"But you need love, don't you?" Ruth turned in a circle, lifting her spotted voile skirt as she danced. Ruth had brought enough clothing to stay six months rather than one, and each gown was more frivolous than the last.

Emily crossed her arms over her chest. She and Ruth had had this discussion a million times. "For a modern woman who's taken off, leaving her prospective bridegroom practically at the altar, you certainly have old-fashioned ideas."

Ruth lifted her tiny shoulders in a shrug. She was a petite woman with dark hair, a round face, and intriguing green eyes that caught the attention of many an admirer. "I want to marry for love, not for security. Aaron ought to marry Daddy if he wants a portion of the Greenfield jewelry empire."

Emily laughed. She was glad Ruth had come along. She guessed Gordon Fraser would be as formal and stodgy as her employers always were. It would have been a long month with such company without Ruth.

"I still didn't think you should have left on such short notice," Emily reprimanded gently, but then she smiled. "But I'm glad you came—"

"Ladies."

Surprised by the masculine voice, Emily turned in mid-sentence. "Lord Fraser," she began. "I'm so—" For a moment her voice was lost. The broker in London said Lord Fraser had been a long time client, his father's before his. Emily had expected an ancient, stoop-shouldered, white-haired man, carrying a cane.

Emily had to tighten her jaw to keep it from dropping to her knees.

Gordon Fraser was no older than thirty years, with a slim build, roguish black shoulder-length hair… and the most hauntingly handsome face Emily had ever laid eyes upon.

"M… Mr… Lord Fraser…" Emily fumbled, feeling like a complete fool to stare at a man so. "I'm Emily MacDougal and this is my traveling companion, Ruth Greenfield."

"My lord!" Ruth stalked over to the Laird of Fraser Castle, her hand thrust out, her hips swaying.

Gordon Fraser accepted Ruth's hand and shook it politely, but his dark-eyed gaze fixed on Emily. "Mr. Fraser will suffice," he said coolly. His gaze strayed to Ruth as she withdrew her hand, then back to Emily. "I'm indeed laird of the castle, but my family was never graced by title." He had a slight Scottish lilt, but it was nothing like Angus's heavy brogue.

Emily still stared, her mouth still agape. "I… I'm pleased to meet you, sir." She made no attempt to shake his hand. Surely this was a mistake. This was Gordon
Fraser's son or grandson. This man could not possibly have been served by the Boggs family for seventy years.

Gordon Fraser stood erect, his hands at his sides, but he had none of the stiffness of the manservant. "I do not mean to be inhospitable, but I believe a terrible error has occurred."

"I'll say there's been an error," Ruth murmured, amusement plain in her voice.

"An error… yes. I suppose." Emily felt like a complete imbecile. "I was hired by the Lord of Fraser Castle to repair a rare original Gutenberg Bible. He… my Mr. Fraser, well not mine, was elderly."

Gordon tore his gaze from hers. "How ironic," he said dryly, moving to the head of the table. "My E. Bruce MacDougal was male."

Emily felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment, and she averted her gaze.

Mr. Fraser pulled out a chair to his right, which Ruth immediately slipped into. He placed his hand on the back of the chair to his left, indicating for Emily to sit.

She took her seat. "I… I apologize for misleading you… if I did in some way."

He sat. "My guess would be that you misled me intentionally, Mm MacDougal, and I do not appreciate being misled. You should not have come here."

She lifted the linen napkin from the table and placed it on her lap. She had been repairing antique books and manuscripts for more than eight years. While studying art in Paris and Rome she'd discovered she had a touch for it. But in the last eight years she'd never had a position begin so awkwardly. Her employers were always surprised by the fact that she was female, but none had ever been so openly annoyed.

And what was the point of being angry now? She was here, whether he liked it or not, for the next thirty days. The mail steamer, the only way to and from the island, wouldn't return for a month, and she already knew the Scotsman had no vessel of his own. The captain of the steamer had said so himself, remarking how odd it was that a man should imprison himself on an island.

Emily wanted this job. She wanted the Gutenberg. And now that she was here, he was stuck with her.

"Mr. Fraser." She gazed directly into his angry eyes. "Would you have hired me, had you known I was female?"

He withdrew the cork from a bottle of wine. "Nay. Wine?"

She wondered how he could be so polite and hospitable as if he was glad for her company, and yet so obviously annoyed with her. She lifted her glass to him, intrigued. She had always thought of men as simple creatures, too elementary to bear more than one emotion, or even thought, at the same time. "Thank you."

He filled her glass with one smooth and elegant motion, his hand large but graceful. It was a fascinating hand, clean, with fingertips stained by ink. Like her own.

She watched the rich Merlot flow into the stemmed vessel. "That is why I do not indicate my gender when offering my services, though I certainly do not conceal it."

"It never occurred to me that a woman—" He corrected himself—"that E. Bruce was a man."

"Why would it not occur to you?" she challenged. "A woman could certainly repair your Gutenberg—should she be duly qualified—as adeptly as a man."