How to Seduce a Scot (18 page)

Catherine did not sleep that night, as she knew she would not. She did dress for bed, putting on her night rail of thick cotton edged with lace, its pearl buttons shining dully in the light of her one candle. She tried to read, but Mrs. Radcliffe could not hold her attention. She tried to pray, but it seemed as with King Claudius in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, her prayers did not to heaven go.

She fingered the pearl her father had given her mother on the night they were wed. She put it around her neck, opening her gown just by its top two buttons so that she could see the pearl gleaming. It was a symbol of her parents' love for each other, love that had been evident every day of her life, until the day her father died.

She raised the pearl ring that shone on her left hand, catching the light of the candle. If she took it off, she might lose it, but it didn't feel right against her flesh. It wasn't a promise of good things to come, but a shackle that tied her to her fate as strong as a chain of adamant. She did not weep, for it seemed her tears had dried up along with her hope. In the end, she could not stand to look at either piece of jewelry anymore, so she added the ring to the chain around her neck, and hid both beneath her dressing gown.

Something rattled against the window above the side yard around midnight, but it might have been a trick of the night wind. At the same time, though, the smell of smoke came from somewhere close. It was stronger than her candle stub, stronger than a lamp in the hand of someone passing in the hall. She looked to the window over the back garden; a glow came from it that was too bright to be a street lamp.

There were no lamps in the garden. The glow was coming from the back of the house.

She opened her window and leaned out, only to find that the kitchen was on fire.

Someone began shrieking then, over and over. She ran from her room to find her mother shaking Margaret awake.

“Catherine, that rope your friend gave you. Where is it? Quickly!”

Margaret woke slowly, but Catherine knew where the rope ladder was. She drew it out from beneath her sister's bed.

She did not hesitate, but opened the window over the back of the house. Smoke blew in from below, and she said a word she had heard Alex use once under her breath.

“Catherine! Language!”

“I am sorry, Mother. The fire is burning below. We must find another way out.”

She watched as the servants began to line up in the back garden, making a sort of bucket brigade from the garden well to the kitchen door. She turned and took her mother and sister by the hand, the rope ladder tucked under one arm.

“Come with me.”

Catherine's hands were shaking as she ran with them to the front of the house, where the smoke was bad, but where there were no flames visible. The fumes choked her, and she covered her face with one arm as she tried to go down the staircase to the front hall. Halfway down, the smoke was so thick that she could not even see. She dragged her mother back up the stairs, Margaret sandwiched close between them.

Her heart pounding, she stopped at the second floor, trying to think of what Alex or Mary Elizabeth might do. She opened a window in the formal drawing room. People crowded below, gaping. No doubt the news of this mishap would be one of the talks of the Town come morning. But there was no time to worry about propriety or of what people might think of her. She tossed the rope down the side of the house, securing it carefully to the windowsill.

“Mother, you climb down first, and hold the rope steady for Margaret.”

Olivia Middlebrook clutched both daughters close, then climbed down quickly, and with amazing nimbleness for a woman over thirty.

She waved to them from the ground below, and held the rope ladder steady as Margaret scurried down like a monkey.

“Thank God for Mary Elizabeth,” Catherine heard her sister say. Thank God indeed.

Catherine tried to breathe in as much clean air from the window as possible, but the smoke was rising and her eyes began to sting. She said a prayer to the Holy Mother and began to climb down.

The hemp scraped against the skin of her palms, and she had a nonsensical thought that she ought to have worn gloves. At least a bonnet was not needed to keep the sun off her face, as it was the dead of night.

A touch of hysterical laughter threatened to bubble in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She was still six feet above the ground when she felt strong hands take hold of her waist.

“Let go of that blasted rope, Catherine. I've got you.”

Alex Waters's voice sounded in her ear like a voice from another life. He drew her down and into his arms, and she clung to him like a cocklebur. Once her bare feet touched ground, she found that she was shaking.

“What are you doing here?” She heard the tears in her voice before she felt them on her cheeks. He held her close, not showing any sign of letting her go.

“I am here to see you. I didn't think to find you climbing down to the street, your house on fire.”

She laughed a watery laugh. Her mother was quietly fussing over Margaret, who was standing close by, none the worse for wear, swathed in Alex's oversized coat. The sleeves dangled far past her hands, and she kept trying to push them back, and failing.

“Come into the garden,” Alex said. “They are trying to put it out. I've got to help them.”

A chill of horror ran along her spine, cold down her back like the fingers of a corpse. “Giles,” she said. “Did someone think to get Giles out?”

“I have no idea,” Alex said. “Is he your dog?”

“He's the butler,” Catherine said, her voice rising with the hysterics she was trying so hard to repress. She took a deep breath. “He is on the fourth floor, up a narrow stair. His leg is broken.”

Alex suddenly looked even more grim, soot beginning to line his face. She wondered how ghastly she looked, having climbed out of their house, if he looked like that from simply standing too close on the street.

Catherine turned to go back inside, but Alex held her fast.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“I must help him. He'll suffocate up there. The smoke is rising!”

Alex's touch was soothing, but she could not budge the strength of his arms. He drew her with him into the back garden, so that they were at least off the street. The kitchen was still burning, the fire an almost merry blaze. Half of the lower floor was gone; how could the building still be standing? Surely it was going to collapse.

Margaret and her mother stood in the back of the garden, as far from the flames and smoke as possible. The wind was shifting in their favor, but the flames were a tide that would not yet be stemmed. Catherine looked frantically at the servants gathered to haul water and watched as her mother went to join them, after giving Margaret strict instructions to stay where she was.

There were Jim and William, and the young bootblack, Charlie, who was a sort of boy of all work. She saw Marie, still dressed in her maid's blacks, carrying bucket after bucket, as Mrs. Beam did the same. Her mother's French maid was helping, but without a great deal of efficiency. But Giles was nowhere to be seen.

“Dear God, Alex, he's not here.”

Alex kissed her once, fiercely, as if to silence her. The touch of his lips on hers grounded her, and her hysteria began to recede. He did not speak but turned and went into the house through the back door, heedless of smoke and flames, his white shirtsleeves bright in the light of the fire.

This fire was her punishment for her sins of wickedness. She had loved one man while allowing herself to be courted by another. All this was God's judgment. She could feel it in the hollow of her bones.

If Alex died trying to save her people, she would never forgive herself.

It seemed an eternity as she paced in the garden, trampling down good grass as her nightgown grazed her lilacs. She had said almost an entire rosary before Alex appeared again, this time rounding the house from the front, carrying a disgruntled Giles on his back.

A cheer went up from all the household, and tears wet Catherine's cheeks again. She did not wipe them away, but went to the bench where Alex set her butler down, and threw her arms around the man who was the last link to her father.

Giles stopped grousing that he was man enough to walk on his own, and patted her back. “There, there, Miss Middlebrook. No need to fret. It is just plaster and paint. We will build again.”

“I am not weeping for the house,” she said. “I am weeping for you.”

“Well, as you can see, there's no need for that. If you want to be useful, go help your mother put the flames out.”

Alex stood by, getting his breath as Margaret began fussing over Giles. Catherine looked up into his soot-smeared face, more tears running from her already sore and reddened eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

“You might as well thank the sun for rising,” Alex answered her. “Wherever I go, and whatever I do for the rest of my life, will be done in your service.”

She wanted to put her arms around him again, but he turned away to help the bucket brigade. She followed him, and stayed, even when he tried to send her back to Margaret and Giles. She kept crying all the while she was carrying buckets. If only her tears might be of use, and put out some of the flames.

The fire went out without the help of her tears, though, and soon even the smoke began to clear. It rose away on the night air to mingle with the smoke that hung thick in London's skies. Catherine sat down in the grass alongside Marie, exhausted. She heard Cook say, “It was the kitchen chimney. We've not had it cleaned in a donkey's age, and look what it's come to now.”

Catherine could not feel even a hint of horror at the thought of such a loss coming from a foolish oversight. She simply lay back on the grass and let the early morning dew begin to wash her clean.

* * *

“Catherine! Get off that wet lawn at once!”

Her mother's voice woke her abruptly from whatever bit of sleep she had been able to snatch. It could not have been later than one in the morning, but despite her moment of sleep, Catherine felt as if she had been awake a year. She stood at once, before Alex could offer her his hand to help her up.

His face was covered in smoke dust, as no doubt hers was as well. She looked at the house her great-grandfather had built, and sighed to see the mess the fire had left behind. She would have to inquire in the morning of Mr. Philips, that he might send someone to see if the structure was sound. The thought of all that the morning would bring weighed on her like a curse. Her shoulders slumped under the heavy load.

Alex took her hand, his black leather glove soft and tempting against her skin. “Whatever it is, don't think about it now. Come home with me and sleep. We will deal with your burdens tomorrow.”

His dark eyes warmed her from the inside out, even as the heat of his touch warmed her palm. She wished fervently and forever that she might lay her burdens on his shoulders, that she might tell him all and cast her future and her life in with his. But she knew her duty. She knew what her father would say, if he were there. And she would hold to honor, for the last vestige of what he had taught her would keep him still alive, if only in her heart.

She squeezed Alex's hand once, and then let him go.

Mary Elizabeth greeted them in the foyer of the Duchess of Northumberland's house with cups of warm cider. There was a maid apiece to lead Margaret and their mother up to their guest rooms, which Mary Elizabeth already had prepared.

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like, as long as you must, and beyond,” Mary Elizabeth said, her brogue coming out, whether from exercising hospitality as was fit for a Scottish woman, or from exhaustion due to the late hour, Catherine could not say.

Mary Elizabeth went on. “This house is like a museum or a tomb, it is so big and silent. What's that grand tomb those heathens built in India, Robbie?” she asked her brother.

“The Taj Mahal,” he replied, sleep rumpled but handsome.

“Aye, whatever that may mean. It's a great big place that looks like a palace, but it holds only one dead woman. This house is like that. So welcome.” Mary Elizabeth hugged Catherine tight, and took Mrs. Middlebrook and Margaret into her arms as well. Mary Elizabeth brooked no argument as they were ushered up the staircase to their separate but adjoining rooms. After the scare they'd had, Catherine had no doubt that they would sleep in the same bed. She did not mention that to Mary Elizabeth, who seemed pleased to have at least three more rooms in the empty house filled up.

All the servants had been taken in as well, save for Jim, who stayed with the house to keep looters away. Catherine felt herself taken up and comforted by Mary Elizabeth's busyness, but even so, she felt Alex's eyes on her, and she wondered how she was going to sleep even a moment in the same house as he. Her earlier exhaustion had fled as soon as they entered the grand house. The heat of his gaze followed her, and made her light-headed and lighthearted all the way up the staircase.

She bathed in one of the three bathing rooms in the house, all of which had heated water flowing down from a cistern in the roof. Catherine had rarely known such luxury, but she did not savor it, bathing quickly.

The soft soap in the duchess's bath smelled like jasmine, the fragrance heady and almost overpowering. She smoothed the scent over her skin, washing away all soot and dirt. And she thought of Alex, and how his hands might feel on her skin.

She shocked herself with this line of thought, but her night had taken on a truly unreal quality, as if she had stepped somehow outside of time, outside of her life. She knew that she must marry Lord Farleigh. And she did not have the strength to wait, to have a decent, sensible engagement with its rounds of parties and two weeks of dressmaking, and then a formal wedding with Margaret as bridesmaid. She must leave Alex Waters behind, and begin a new life. She would go to Lord Farleigh, to Arthur, as soon as the sun was up and ask him to run away with her.

His mother would no doubt disapprove if they fled to Gretna Green, but once wedded and bedded, the scandal would subside in the light of Lord Farleigh's staid, calm ways. Indeed, a runaway marriage might even impress some of his friends, and show them that he was not always the boring man they no doubt thought him to be. She knew that if she asked, Lord Farleigh would take her to Scotland and marry her over an anvil, no questions asked.

She had first liked him for that very biddableness. Though Alex had shown her that she had a taste for another kind of man altogether, her personal tastes did not signify. She would marry Lord Farleigh, and he would care for her and hers for the rest of their lives. Their debt to him would be paid, and all would be as it should.

All of that would happen in the light of the new day. Catherine dried herself with the duchess's thick bathing sheets. She would shirk no longer, and that was a promise. Come morning, she would run away from Alex and all the temptation he offered, and flee to Gretna Green with Lord Farleigh. With Arthur.

But the notion of the calm, quiet marriage she would soon build with Lord Farleigh brought a strange devastation that shook her to her core. She pushed that devastation aside. Like all grief, it would fade in time to something less horrible. But if she had something to live on for the rest of her days, something to remember of Alex that went beyond a touch of his hand on hers, that went beyond a few stolen kisses…

She took off her mother's pearl and Lord Farleigh's ring. She slipped them into the bag Mary Elizabeth had given her that was filled with underthings, a pair of stays, a nightgown, and a pressed day gown that no doubt now was rumpled. She slipped on the night rail and braided her hair as if going to sleep. But she would not sleep. Not that night, perhaps not ever again.

Her blood sang as if she were going into battle as, with bag in hand, she knocked quietly on Mary Elizabeth's bedroom door.

“Are you frightened from the fire?” Mary Elizabeth asked, still wide-awake from tending to her guests.

“No,” Catherine answered. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

Facing her friend, Catherine found her voice gone. She cleared her throat and took a sip of the cider offered her.

“I am going away in the morning,” she said at once.

Mary Elizabeth frowned. “But you've only just arrived. You truly are welcome to stay as long as you'd like. I wish you'd never leave, truth be told. This mausoleum needs livening up, and we are just the two ladies to do it.”

Catherine laughed at the loyalty and sweetness reflected in Mary Elizabeth's face. “I've never had a friend before. I am grateful for you.”

“Well, it's high time you did. Now, what is this nonsense about going away?”

“I am running away in the morning. With Lord Farleigh.”

Catherine watched as a shadow crossed her friend's face. Mary Elizabeth clearly wanted to ask about Alex, and about her feelings for him, but out of loyalty to Catherine, she did not.

“And where will you go?”

“Gretna Green,” Catherine said, her voice growing stronger with the telling. “We'll marry across the anvil.”

“Running to the Lowlands to be wed,” Mary Elizabeth said, raising one brow. “I had heard you English did such things. But why not marry here? There are plenty of priests about.”

“The marriage laws are strict.”

“But not in Scotland?”

“No.”

“I had always thought a handfasting with a priest to bless it was sufficient for any woman and man, so I suppose that's what you'll have when you cross the border.” Mary Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and gave Catherine a swift, sure hug. “I don't understand your choice, but I'll support it. I'll look after your mother and sister as if they were my own. Robbie will only laugh at the foolishness of English girls, but Alex might take offense. He's taken quite a shine to you. I think he'll come after you.”

“We'll be gone just after dawn,” she answered. “He won't be able to catch us.”

Mary Elizabeth did not look convinced, but she did not voice any more objections. She took out a leather sheath that held half a dozen throwing knives—the small, light kind that she had taught Catherine to throw in the duchess's ballroom what felt like a lifetime ago. She wrapped three in a heavy bit of flannel and handed them to Catherine.

“Keep one of these in your reticule at all times, and one in your boot. It's best if you hide the third somewhere in the carriage where you can get at it easily.”

“Thank you, Mary, but I don't need knives.”

“Aye, and you do. Your man looks to be a good sort, but I doubt he'd be good in a fight. You'll be wanting speed, so he won't be bringing outriders with him, as any sensible man should when traveling among the English. Lowlifes and ruffians abound on the North Road, and none mean to do you good. You'll take these knives and keep them by you, so you've got some defense, if some evildoer looks to harm you.”

Catherine tucked the knives into her leather satchel, and slipped on the half boots Mary Elizabeth handed her. She did not lace them, but found that they fit.

“The rest of my clothes will fit you, too. My stays lace up the front, because I can't stand to have a woman dress me. You'll get used to them, and it looks as if you'll need them where you're going. I don't suppose your man will bring a lady's maid along on his honeymoon.”

Mary Elizabeth laughed at that, and Catherine wondered what she thought was funny, but did not question her. But dawn was coming in less than three hours, and she had one more stop to make.

“Thank you,” she said, kissing her friend on the cheek.

She left Mary Elizabeth, and stood for one long moment in the dark hall outside the bedroom door. She should go to the guest room only two doors down. She needed to rest a bit, if not sleep, before she dressed for the day ahead. But she did not. Instead, she turned the other way.

She walked down the corridor to the room she had dreamed of too many times. She had been in it only once before, but she found it with ease, like a lost pigeon coming home.

Catherine did not knock, but when she found the door to Alex Waters's room unlocked, she turned the knob and stepped inside.