Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (43 page)

But she was too quick—by the time he had reached the bank of the burn, his lass was out of earshot, well away down the winding path that led to the village. She went entirely alone, but unlike him, who had run out unprepared for the weather, she was dressed against the summer downpour.

Still, it was no time to be about. And stranger still, she also chose the longer, more circuitous route along the burn, instead of taking the open lane that ran in a straight line from the Castle to the village. The path along the burn provided more cover.

Cover for what? The rain wasn’t that hard—for Scotland, where it was very often horizontal—and there were trees along the open lane, too, shielding her from the heavy summer shower. But not from view.

The memory of the subtle warming of Sebastian’s tone pushed him closer to alarm. And once he had started, Alasdair could not seem to stop himself from thinking there was something distinctly furtive in the way Quince twice stopped to check the path ahead and behind. Something distinctly clandestine, that made him think she was up to no good.
 

His heart stuttered painfully in his chest—either that or his new wife was giving him an ulcer of the stomach. How many times had she warned him that she was not good? Too many times to count.
 

And now she was flitting surreptitiously through his woods. As if she had an assignation.

Nay. Who could she meet? She had not left the castle before, and had no acquaintance that he knew of in the highlands. He was inventing problems—borrowing trouble, Mrs. Broom would have said. He would catch up with his wife, and put all his fears and distrust to rest.
 

But she had already slipped past the stone gates that marked the boundary of the estate, and was upon the wet, puddle-strewn path to the outer village. And her destination, some fifty feet down the lane, proved not to be the village, but the village kirk.

Alasdair’s mind blanked—nothing was more innocuous than a church. And it was only right that Lady Cairn should involve herself with the spiritual well-being of the village. He should be glad she was involving herself.
 

But he couldn’t make himself believe it. Not entirely.

Quince paused only briefly in the kirkyard to look across the lane over the hedge toward the grey stone vicarage before she disappeared through the lone low doorway.

But Alasdair didn’t follow her.

For reasons that he did not want to examine or admit, Alasdair stood in the rain in the shadow of the gate, debating what to do next, wrestling with his scruples. There were any number of perfectly innocent reasons why she might have gone to the church. She might be praying—God knew, she had sins aplenty for which she might want to atone.

But because he was the man he was, and because she was the woman she was, Alasdair did not think Quince was praying. And even though a good husband would have turned around, and gone home, and waited patiently for his young wife to return in her own good time, he did not. He could not be that man. He did not trust her.

And he could not put off what needed to be done.
Incipe
—he would begin at once.
 

On the shaded north side of the church, a leaded-glass window was tipped open to let in the soft summer air. Alasdair damned his scruples, and headed for the spot, hugging the wall just below the window, trying to make out words over the steady drone of the rain.

He could discern only two voices—Quince’s and a man. A younger man, whose voice could not be that of Reverend Ramsay, the aged rector of Cairn Kirk.

A younger man whose voice—though he could not immediately place it—sounded vaguely familiar.

Alasdair plastered himself against the wall, and made himself stop, and think, and decide if he really were going to eavesdrop on his young wife. He made himself wonder if he was prepared for his young wife to serve him another nasty surprise as shocking as the last, when he had been driven by sheer fury and frustration to shoot at her.
 

Despite the potentially dire consequences, he chose to peer through the wavy glass into the dim interior anyway.

In the narrow view of the nave afforded by the open sliver of window, he could make out Quince standing at the front of the pews, her hand gripping the railing so tightly her knuckles looked white. In front of her was the dark shadow of a man—a vicar to be sure, judging by his round-brimmed back hat and black coat.
 

The Reverend Mr. Talent, damn his holy eyes.

The same man Alasdair had interrupted with Quince at a ball, not once but twice. The man Quince had sent for when she had been injured. The man who had reluctantly married them. The man who had likely sent his wife that private letter Sebastian had so carefully mentioned. The man who was in Cairn village, when he ought to have been at Saint Cuthbert’s West Kirk in Edinburgh, one hundred-odd miles to the south.

Alasdair turned away and shut his eyes, and realized it was his turn to pray.

“Reverend Talent.” Quince pushed back her wet hood, and approached the tall clergyman at the altar rail without waiting for him to greet her. “I received your note. What is so urgent that you must come all this way to see me?”

Her heart was hammering away at her conscience—she was beyond worried that somehow, someway, despite Strathcairn’s rushed wedding and rumors of romance, she had been found out. Or worse, that Jeannie or Charlie had.

But the Reverend Mr. Talent wore a stolid, unconcerned smile, as if there were no crisis or urgency. “My lady.”

“Sir.” She essayed the barest curtsey, anxious to discover the reasons for his unexpected presence. “What are you doing in Cairn? What is wrong that you have come here?”

His cheeks colored is what she could only assume was chagrin. “I had hoped you would welcome my call.”

Quince did not bother to hide her consternation. “Certainly, but if you had wanted to call, why did you not call at the Castle, instead of sending for me in this frankly alarming fashion?”

“I admit some reluctance to see you at Castle Cairn.” His bright cheeks made his eyes shine with his characteristic self-effacement. “But I came because I could not rest until I had satisfied myself that you were well, and happy, my lady.”

Quince was entirely taken aback. “That is very good in you, I’m sure. But as you see, sir, I am well. Surely you have not come all this way north merely to check on my health?”

“I can see you are well,” he hedged. “But I flatter myself I cannot see that you are happy.”

As she was in a kirk, Quince thought it best to pray that her confidence and temper—already a little frayed from her conversation with Mr. Oistins—would hold. Mr. Talent did indeed flatter himself. To excess. “I assure you, sir, there are qualified physicians here, as well as admirably talented healers. My housekeeper, Mrs. Broom, has looked after my injury with every care. I thank you for your concern, but I fear you have wasted a very long and arduous journey north for nothing.”

“But the abrupt manner in which you quit town…”

Quince felt the heat of her own embarrassment scald her cheeks. This was more than idle flattery—this was intrusion. But however mortified she felt, she was herself, and had an answer. She smiled at the intrusive man. “Pray, must I explain romance, Reverend, in all its impetuous variety?”
 

“Forgive me for speaking plainly, my lady, but you did not seem entirely willing to be married at the time.”

Oh, by jimble. Off all the cheek! Not that she hadn’t been a wee bit unwilling, but they had sorted that out, she and Alasdair, and she had chosen to marry. But now she feared that in choosing to call the Reverend Talent to tend to her injury, she had somehow engendered some feeling from him other than gratitude. At the time, she had thought that as he was rather beholden to her, he would do a better job of keeping his mouth shut.

“I had been injured, Mr. Talent, as you may recall. An accident, as I assured you then, that colored my thinking. Blood loss will do that I’m told.”

“Yes. So will fear.”

The feeling that streaked across her skin was something more chilling than embarrassment—it was as stealthy and sharp-clawed as alarm. Her palms went instantly cold and clammy within her gloves. But she put up her chin. “I was not afraid of Lord Cairn, Mr. Talent. Nor am I now.”

He smiled and shook his head, as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child. “Perhaps you ought to be, my lady.”

Her alarm grew talons, the cold claws sinking deeper into her spine. “How do you mean, sir?”

“I should be very afraid of what Lord Cairn, the Home Secretary, the minister in charge of prisons and probations, should think if I were you.”

Holy painted saints on a church wall. It was as if he had unsheathed a sword—Quince could almost hear the sound of sharp metal slicing through the air. At least he
thought
he was unsheathing a sword—he could not know the threat was empty because Strathcairn already knew her worst.
 

But who would have thought the stolid reverend was ever a sword player? Clearly not she.
 

But now that she was on her guard, she could see that trying to serve him up a riposte—telling him that Strathcairn already knew all—would be pointless, and potentially damaging. The less the reverend knew, the better.
 

“I thank you for your concern, Reverend Talent.” She stood, and gave him the shallowest curtsey in her repertoire. “Good day.” It were best if she left before she allowed herself to become fully angry.

But Talent was not ready to be dismissed—he stopped her with a surprisingly strong hand to her elbow. “Surely, my lady, you don’t think we can get along without you?”

The fine hairs on her forearm lifted, and fear slid under her skin, cracking and chequering like a fast rime of ice—his grip was purposefully hurtful.
 

But Quince husbanded enough anger to match the fear. She wrenched her elbow from his grip. “The situation has changed, sir.” She hoped her voice was nothing but frost and ire. “I am no longer available to help you.”

He frowned down at her, as if he could not believe what he was hearing—as if he could not grasp that her days of donating to Saint Cuthbert’s charity must be done. “Surely there is something you can do? You are Marchioness of Cairn, now. Surely you have more to give.”

“Nay,” she insisted. “I will give here if there is any giving to be done. Surely you understand that?”
 

“What is to stop you from doing both?”

Nothing but a rapidly growing distrust. Quince made up the most convenient, and most unassailable excuse upon the spot. “I no longer have any control over my own finances. My husband controls my fortune now, not I.”
 

It was not entirely a lie—the truth was she had no idea of her settlements. But the law was fairly cut and dried, and fairly
un
-fair, on the subject of a wife’s fortune—it belonged almost entirely to the husband. But she would not protest the law at this moment if it meant she could be shed of Talent.

The vicar moved closer—too close, backing her against a pew—and lowered his voice to speak as if they were intimates. “My lady, I think we both know you have…other means of assisting us.”

Everything within her went instantly cold and still, as if she had frozen up inside. Something close to abject terror squeezed her chest tight.
 

She had never admitted the full extent of what she had done to anyone but Alasdair. She had been careful with Talent, wary of letting him know too much, protective of Jeannie and Charlie, happy to encourage the convenient lie that the money she gave to West Kirk came from a generous allowance.
 

“There are no other means, sir.” She tried to keep her voice even, firm and factual. But she could hear the first faint cracks of fear creaking through her words. “Let me repeat, sir—my husband controls all of my fortune, every last penny and pin. Pray apply yourself to him.”

Talent shook his head. “I don’t think Lord Cairn would like that. Nor would I. I doubt he has anything like your dedication to the poor, my lady. You have always been such a reliable champion of God’s unfortunates. And there are, sadly, too few people like you.”

Quince tried to push air back into her lungs. If he thought she was a saint, she would be happy to disabuse him. “There are many people like me, sir, so perhaps you need to cultivate a wider circle of acquaintances and donors, now that, sadly, I cannot be one of them.”