Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and Unrepentant\Return of the Prodigal Gilvry\A Traitor's Touch (59 page)

So how could she even think of breaking away from him now, for go she must. She closed her eyes. Why,
why
had she said she would wait for him here in these rooms? She could not. It was impossible. Tears formed in her eyes, blurring her vision. Their love had no future. She could not marry him and she could not stay and pursue their present course. But after what they had done, she would be unworthy of any other man, since she had sinned both in the flesh and in the mind. For even as she felt guilt seize her, she knew she would go to Simon again and again, that no warning voice in the back of her mind could stop her overwhelming need for Simon Tremain.

After a while she turned away from the window, her eyes dry and her face set in determined lines. Now was not the time for senseless reflections. Conscious of a growing, insidious fear, she did her best to thrust it away. She must not think about the increasing danger to Simon if there was to be a battle. She had to keep a clear head and a cool brain if she was to leave Edinburgh and continue on her journey north.

* * *

Later that day when Simon returned to the rooms, expecting to find Henrietta waiting for him, she had been on the road for some hours. At first he was surprised to find her gone, then his surprise quickly disappeared. He was enraged. His face blanched and a muscle leapt in his clenched jaw. Something shattered inside him, splintering his emotions from all rational control. A million thoughts and feelings spun in a chaotic turbulence and he was scarcely able to contemplate this enormous debacle.

Eventually he flayed his thoughts into obedience. He had known and made love to countless women, but he had never wanted any of them as he wanted Henrietta. What was it about her that he found so appealing? Her innocence? Her sincerity? Her smile that set his heart pounding like that of an inexperienced youth in the first throes of love?

He frowned. No, not love. Love had always passed him by and he had assumed it was for others, not for him. And yet Henrietta affected him deeply. He remembered when he had kissed her and wondered if he would ever go back to Barradine without remembering the time he'd spent when she had been there. He could still hear her musical laughter, see her glowing eyes and jaunty, heartrending smile. He closed his eyes to shut out her image, but he could still smell the scent of her in the air. He told himself that what he felt was the ache of frustrated desire, but he could not deny that whenever he thought of her his mind was beginning to dwell more and more often on love.

If circumstances had been different, if she had simply gone riding in the park for pleasure, he would not have worried. But these were troubled times with all manner of desperate and brutal humanity roaming the hills. He was overwhelmed by the impulse to go after her, but he couldn't abandon his duty on the eve of battle.

And so he lived from day to day in a silent, barely controlled rage, rage at himself for having emotions he could not control. He cursed Henrietta and yet he missed her, and wondered at the cruel removal from his life. But what was done was done. It was better this way. Hopefully she would soon be with her uncle—back where she belonged. He would take care of her.

* * *

From Edinburgh Henrietta headed north to Queensferry and crossed the Firth of Forth. She took the back roads rather than the main route, thinking she would meet fewer people that way. She'd had the presence of mind to purchase bannocks and cheese before leaving Edinburgh so she didn't have to stop until nightfall, when she acquired rooms at hostelries along the way. It was September and the weather was warm, but she covered herself with her cloak and kept her hat pulled well down. It was a relief that the Highlanders she encountered going south paid her scant attention. Their minds were set on joining the Bonnie Prince, but she did her best to evade and hide from them whenever possible.

Pushing herself hard, the last part of the journey was the most trying of all. With her head down against the buffeting wind, her cloak tight about her, mud-spattered, stiff with fatigue, she rode on into the emptiness, following a track made by generations of Highland sheep and shepherds on their migration to and from the summer pastures. She drank from streams, the water clear, cold and pure. At one point when she was quite alone except for the rabbits and deer that inhabited the heath and woodlands, the circumstances and the injustices that had driven her from London swept through her mind in bitter recall, sparking her resentment anew until she longed to shout her rancour to the sky. But experience had been a harsh taskmaster on her journey north, brutally convincing her that cool-headed compliance was the only way she could ever hope to survive this last leg of her journey.

Closing her eyes, she let the horse take her. Against the dark screen of her eyelids, an image of Simon appeared. He was as she had seen him in the garden the night before they left Barradine. In her imagination, she felt the warmth of his breath and daydreamed that he was only a few yards away, waiting for her. Remembering the moments they had spent together in Edinburgh, of the fierce pleasure, halfway between ecstasy and pain, which she had felt in his arms and he in hers, the sweetness of their kisses when their first desire was slaked, only to return again with renewed fervour, the temptation to step into the dream began to seduce her. But she knew that with each passing hour she was going further away from the man she had come to love beyond measure.

Would she ever see him again? The thought that she might not tore at her heart. Never again would they be so intimate. They could not be and she was engulfed by a deep sadness for what she had gained, for what she had lost. For the first time in her life she had fallen for a man—a man she could not be with. Her unhappiness folded around her like a cloak and she wished with all her heart she had not laid eyes on Simon Tremain. Then she would have come straight to Scotland and her uncle.

But as her mind continued to wander, she wondered what Simon was doing now, this minute. Did he think of her, as she thought of him? And Jeremy, she thought with a slight shudder, did he also think of her? That, too, she did not doubt, and the thought provided little comfort to her.

Opening her eyes, she urged her mount to a faster pace. All of a sudden, the scudding breezes strengthened and swept across the moor, snatching her from a morass of morbid uncertainty as her eyes lighted on a building crouched low to the land. It dawned on her that she had much to be grateful for, for she had proven herself capable of existing under the most intolerable conditions Jeremy had created. It was strange, but the memory of the terrible circumstances that had driven her from her home seemed strangely detached from the reality of the present. Yet for all the injustice she still endured, she knew without a doubt that she was still wonderfully, desperately alive. Please God Simon was, too.

The cottage—a long single-storey building of stone and thatch—stood amongst the whins and large outcrops of glowering rocks. It was remote, in as savage a situation as can be imagined. No other house or haunt of man crouched within sight of it.

She hadn't known what to expect on arriving at the cottage. Her mind was braced on her meeting with her uncle. Would he be happy to see her, or would he be angry with her?

A small Highland pony with its head poking over the half-door of the stable whickered softly as she made for the house. After knocking lightly on the door, when there was no answer she pushed it open and went inside. She was pleasantly surprised. Facing south, the house was sun filled, polished and scented. It was larger than she had expected and well furnished. Everywhere she looked there were books carefully arranged on shelves or strewn on tabletops. She looked around, wondering where her uncle could be when a voice spoke behind her from the doorway.

‘My dear Henrietta—for it is you, is it not? Well, here is a delight. On my soul, it is good to see you! But have I taken leave of my senses? Henrietta? Here? What are you doing in Scotland? I hope all is well—but alone and far from home, I suspect it is not.'

Henrietta swung round. She had been prepared for and anticipated the impact of her uncle, remembering so well the quality of the man. Yet even so, she was somehow taken by surprise. It was partly the complete contrast of the man with his surroundings, the so-obvious unsuitability of everything about this remarkable place as a background for him. She could see his face was weathered with the elements and age, but even so it bore a strong resemblance to her father's. His eyes were still sharp and intelligent and showing no film of age. The feelings that welled up in Henrietta drew her towards him.

Smiling, hands out, he stepped forward to embrace his niece, to kiss her on both cheeks French-fashion, for as a youth and then as a young man he had spent a good deal of his time in France. ‘I am not dreaming! It is really you! Good heavens, child, how lovely you have grown! Over ten years it has been, Henrietta. Too long. Too long to be separated from family.'

‘It was you who chose to isolate yourself,' Henrietta pointed out.

‘Aye—well—that business with your father...' He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I never did understand why he involved himself with those damned Jacobites.'

Henrietta smiled. ‘You always were a militant Catholic. Have you recanted your faith altogether, Uncle?'

‘Sanctimonious hocus-pocus doesn't interest me.' He took in every inch of the young woman before him before he spoke again. ‘Dear child, how often I have thought of you in London and wished you well. Your letters were a delight, to be sure, but I cannot tell you how your arrival has lifted my spirits. I had begun to despair that I'd never see you again. You're the only family I have now.'

With those simple words, Henrietta felt the wall she had erected in fear crumbling away. ‘Well, I'm here now,' she murmured, wishing she had known him better before he'd disappeared from her life. Yet she had every hope that would soon change. ‘Are you ever lonely?'

Shaking his head, he smiled. ‘I like being alone. I often sit in the dark and meditate—which may sound odd to you, but that is what I do. I have friends in and around Inverness, and when I'm in the mood I visit them. From time to time they arrive with their hounds and I am whirled into the fine company of the hunting scene. But for much of each year I am alone.'

‘Why did you never marry, Uncle Matthew?'

‘Never wanted to. I was too busy travelling and...'

‘Reading your philosophy and history books,' Henrietta finished for him quietly.

‘Aye, and that. Then, too, I found myself at odds with women. I'm sure those with whom I came into contact with thought I was a crusty old so-and-so and not worth the bother.'

‘I find that hard to believe,' Henrietta said affectionately. ‘My mother always said you were pleasing company. Indeed, you have a way about you that reminds me of my father—when he wasn't trying to incite rebellion in his fellow Jacobites.'

‘And we all know where that got him.' Shaking his head dejectedly as memories of his dead brother assailed him, at length he said, ‘I don't know why you are here, attired as you are, but I imagine you have good reason and will get round to explaining in due time.'

‘There are some things you should know, Uncle, and I think we should talk about them at length.'

Matthew glanced curiously at his niece's face, deciding it was a matter of some urgency. ‘Of course, and so we shall. But come.' He waved her to a settle before the fire. ‘What kind of host am I? You look quite done in. Sit down and I'll make you some tea—so you see I am quite civilised. Indeed, I have a woman, Moira, whose son brings her over from Inverness in the cart once every week to cook and clean the house and bring whatever provisions I need—although of late she's become rather hard of hearing and doesn't see too well, but she declares she's fit enough to carry on.'

‘I'm glad to hear it. The cottage is so isolated I should hate to think of you here alone day after day. From the neatness of the house I can ascertain that in spite of her limitations Moira is fully capable of doing the chores.'

‘Be seated and get comfortable and you can tell me what it is that has brought you all this way. Something tells me I will not be liking the sound of it.'

* * *

Over tea and muffins Henrietta told her uncle everything that had befallen her. Handing him the copy of the will, he read it carefully. His appalled face was a study. ‘But this is the work of the devil. It must not be. The man's a first-rate crook—and a murderer, if what you have told me about your guardians' death is to be believed,' Matthew stated sharply.

‘It is, Uncle Matthew. You don't know Jeremy and the lengths to which he will go to get what he wants. I did not seek to inherit my guardians' wealth. Indeed, I did not want it.'

‘Will Jeremy Lucas come here?'

‘I very much think he might. He will hound me until he catches me unawares. Now he knows my guardians left everything to me, he'll be more adamant about killing me.'

‘I can understand now why you were so anxious about the man. He certainly seems intent upon doing you some harm. You were right to come to me, even though you put yourself in some amount of danger. But now you are here I will do all I can to ensure that you are not harmed. Of course you must return to London at some point. It is necessary. I will go with you—but I think we should wait a while until the unrest in Scotland caused by the arrival of Charles Stuart settles down.'

‘I must confess that I'm weary of travelling for now.'

‘Then if you can tolerate the seclusion of my humble home, my dear, we shall wait until the spring. But in the meantime I shall write to Baron Lucas's lawyer, Mr Goodwin, and explain the situation.'

‘Thank you, Uncle Matthew. I would be grateful if you would. I know I should have spoken to him myself, but I was afraid of Jeremy and what he might do. When I left London I was quite desperate. I didn't know who to turn to—there was no one—only you, and you were hundreds of miles away.'