The Highland Dragon's Lady (11 page)

Other than accidentally climbing up to their balconies, Reggie had never had much to do with the guest bedrooms at Whitehill. She’d seen the maids keeping them cleaned and turned; she’d heard Mater fuss over new paper and curtains; and she’d paid no more attention to anything else that had gone on in the background of the house.

Standing near the foot of Mrs. Osbourne’s bed, she noticed only how normal the room looked: white paper with pink roses, pale bedclothes and curtains, a small desk and chair in one corner and a dressing table in another. To the eye, the only incongruities were the bandages Mrs. Osbourne still wore and the small crowd of worried-looking people standing between the bed and the door.

Hearing what Mrs. Osbourne said took the whole scene out of “a bit odd” and several miles into the country of “damned uncanny.”

“I’ll make no claims to vast experience now,” Mrs. Osbourne had begun, once everyone had been notified and had assembled. “I have no means of supporting them, and they’re not very relevant regardless. The power I felt on the night of the séance was more than I’ve ever encountered. Almost any medium would say the same. There may be those who’ve faced and fought greater threats, but I’ve never heard of any—and we do talk among ourselves now and again.”

She smiled, but faintly. She spoke quietly, too, and paused every sentence or so to take a breath, and her face was nearly as white as her dressing gown. Standing at her side, Miss Browne watched her with the intent gaze of a man tamping down a gunpowder charge, heedless of anyone else in the room—even of Mr. Heselton, who was watching
her
rather closely, to Reggie’s mind.

“Who is it?” Pater asked.

At the same moment, Mater gave voice to her own questions: “What does it want? How, in heaven’s name, do we get rid of it?”

Mrs. Osbourne sighed. “The simple answer,” she said, “is that I don’t know. Hosting a spirit doesn’t let me know its mind. The vessel never has much awareness. I sensed that it was a woman. I sensed that she was grown, though I had no further notion of her age. And I sensed her wrath.”

“Why was she angry?” asked Mr. Heselton.

“I couldn’t really tell. It may not even matter.” Mrs. Osbourne closed her eyes. “Ghosts aren’t precisely people any longer. They don’t act the same. They don’t
feel
the same.”

Mr. Heselton nodded. “Miss Browne told us how death is a simplification for…those who remain, and how emotions can lead them out of balance.” He touched his collar, frowning. “I don’t know why it should be so—”

“Neither does anyone else,” said Mrs. Osbourne. “There are theories and theories. If we have time and leisure, we can discuss them in the future. For the moment: she is, or was, angry. Whatever caused that anger in the first place, it’s very likely that the ghost let it consume her. Now she is angry because”—she spread her hands—“because anger is what exists for her.”

“Oh, how
horrible
,” said Miss Heselton, and Reggie couldn’t exactly disagree with the sentiment, much as it went without saying, or should have done. She watched Miss Heselton shrink back against the mantel and direct wide eyes toward Edmund. She saw Edmund pat her reassuringly on the shoulder, and she saw Pater, even worried as he was, smile for a second.

Angry ghosts were more important than rescuing her brother. Still, it was time to change the conversation. “What do we
do
, then?” Reggie asked. “Take rooms at a hotel and burn the place down?”

“I’m not sure even that would help,” said Mrs. Osbourne, though she did smile. So did Colin, Reggie noticed out of the corner of her eye. “Spirits have been known to haunt the land when the building is gone.”

“And we have a long way to go,” Mater said, “before arson becomes a solution to our problems, Regina.”

“Just skipping to the end,” said Reggie. “Figured someone might as well ask. If it
was
the only solution, we’d feel dashed silly mucking around here for days beforehand, wouldn’t we?”

“Some people might say ‘thorough,’ dear,” said Mater.

Mrs. Osbourne chuckled, which was a short and dreadfully raspy sound. “There are other avenues, or should be. Have your exorcism,” she said with a gesture in Mr. Heselton’s direction. “I can only invite and suggest, for the most part. I have not the Lord’s power to command”—she blinked suddenly and made a thoughtful little
hmm
sound before going on—“and a man may have more influence in this case.”

“Oh?” Pater asked.

“It’s only a supposition, but”—Mrs. Osbourne shrugged—“now that I think of it, I got the feeling she grew angrier when she realized I was female.”

“Jealousy?” Colin asked.

“It could be,” said Mrs. Osbourne. “Or it could not. I’d have to speak with her again to know more, and”—she touched her side gingerly—“I think perhaps that should be a last resort. Preferably in a room without any heavy objects.”

“I’ll second that,” said Miss Heselton. “I have no doubt that I need more practice as a nurse, but I have no wish to acquire it in such a dramatic manner.”

Mrs. Osbourne smiled. “I couldn’t have wished for anyone more skilled,” she said and turned toward Reggie’s parents. “I do regret imposing myself on your hospitality for so long. Dr. Brant says that I should be quite capable of travel within a few more days.”

“Capable or not,” Mater said, “you’ll stay here as long as you wish—and at least until you can walk again. We
had
anticipated having guests until the, ah, process was completed, and it’s hardly your fault that it’s taking a while. Besides, we have company so rarely, other than my sister and her family.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Osbourne. “I’d heard something about a ball? I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend, of course—” She gestured to the bandages again. “It sounds like an excellent distraction, though.”

“And Miss Browne assures us that distraction will be helpful,” said Mr. Heselton, with a quick glance toward the lady in question.

“Oh, yes. Particularly now. You’ll have to wait on your bishop, yes?” Mrs. Osbourne nodded without waiting for a reply. “There’s nothing so distressing to the mind as a prolonged wait, and nothing so disastrous in dealing with spirits as a distressed mind. Putting the whole matter aside for the evening can only help you.”

“And you won’t be bored to death here alone?” Edmund asked, though he didn’t sound hopeful.

Sure enough, Mrs. Osbourne shook her head. “I’ll most likely be asleep the whole time,” she said. “And in case I’m not, I’m certain that your mother can find me a good book beforehand.”

Reggie considered mentioning the potential danger of leaving a woman on her own, then discarded it. Her mother would only mention that they
did
have footmen, Regina dear, and a gamekeeper as well. Miss Heselton would talk about the country being much less dangerous than London, and there would be no escape for Edmund, let alone for her. She couldn’t escape now, at any rate, without the Heselton girl thinking that she was hiding. There came a time when a brother, no matter how well-loved, would just have to sink or swim on his own. Heselton didn’t seem like the type to engineer her own compromise, at least, and there was nothing more Reggie could do about her delusions.

“Speaking of books,” she said, “we’ve found one. And a painting. And a grave.”

“So Miss Browne mentioned. It seems…a likely start.” Mrs. Osbourne looked from Colin to Mr. Heselton, and the corners of her mouth turned up. Without needing to touch her, Reggie knew that she was considering the two men as a pair: the one slight, sandy haired, and respectable, the other tall, serpent-slim, and just on the decadent side of fashion. All they needed, going by appearances, was a soul to fight over. “How has the translation been coming along, gentlemen?”

“Not so badly, once I got accustomed to the lady’s writing,” said Colin. “And the writer is a lady—she finally said as much. She’s talked of finding a book in London, and of ‘experiments,’ but I haven’t gotten much further than that.”

“She burned the book,” Mr. Heselton said, his face grim. “After her experiments were successful. She transcribed notes about the hours and the phases of the moon and other things—she uses some sort of code that I can’t make out—and then she burned the book itself. She’d gotten all she wanted from it.”

The room went still. Colin’s eyes narrowed; Mrs. Osbourne and Miss Browne glanced at each other in alarm. Even the Talbot-Joneses and Miss Heselton, less familiar with the occult, felt the weight of this latest development, and the unease of knowing that Whitehill had hosted darker things than an unquiet spirit.

Reggie wanted to wrap her arms around herself, for what little protection that could provide, but she forced herself to stand still and keep her face relatively impassive. From what she could tell, Colin and Miss Heselton were both looking elsewhere, but one never knew—and she’d be damned if she’d act like just another mortal in past her depth.

Therefore, she let Edmund ask the question that she was sure everyone was thinking: “What
did
she want?”

“She hasn’t made that clear just yet,” said Mr. Heselton. “Nothing concrete. But she speaks of the right times and places for conversation, and that suggests an unfortunate conclusion—though I really couldn’t speak with any authority on the matter.”

“It would ha’ been contact, at first,” said Colin, his accent deeper than Reggie had ever heard it. “She’d have been after summoning a…being”—he dismissed the question of further identification with a flick of his long fingers—“and striking a bargain with it.”

“You,” said Mrs. Osbourne, “sound like you
can
speak with authority.”

Or
think
you
can
, she wasn’t saying, and everyone in the room knew it. Reggie had used that tone of voice herself a time or two. It tended to work fairly well on overstuffed young men, as long as the object was to make them sputter and go away. She wasn’t sure how it would work on a dragon—even one in disguise—when magic was the subject at hand. Part of her tensed for an explosion.

Colin chuckled, though it wasn’t a particularly pleasant sound. “More theoretical than practical in this specific matter, I assure you,” he said, “but aye, I’ve a bit of knowledge on the score.”

Seven pairs of speculative eyes focused on him. Unperturbed by the attention, Colin just smiled and then shrugged, as if he’d admitted to collecting butterflies or breeding Persian cats.

“Will knowing all of this help in any way?” Mater asked. “I’m not certain what an exorcism involves, but—is knowledge of the spirit necessary?”

“It can only help, I’m sure,” said Mr. Heselton.

He sounded confident. Reggie was glad of it. Although she couldn’t speak for the others, she knew that the exorcism wasn’t the only reason she was trying to find out more. One route to getting rid of the spirit had already failed. The second might prove fruitless as well.

For once in her life, she wanted to be prepared.

The English, to Colin’s mind, had a damned peculiar sort of affection for the trappings of their conquered subjects. Half the drawing rooms in Mayfair had statues of Bubastis on the mantel or paisley paper on the walls. He’d seen more than a dozen pendants or pairs of earrings that were supposed to be “authentic Chinese jade,” and the current queen had followed her uncle’s example in waxing romantic about tartans and kilts.

Perhaps all empires behaved so once they’d established themselves, the lure of the exotic serving as a way to reassure themselves that all that effort and death had produced something of value. Or perhaps the act of conquering was simply a penny dreadful writ large, with one nation as the dashing highwayman and another as the abducted maiden. First one ravished, then one loved.

Philosophy aside, the result was that Colin’s valet, temporarily elevated though he might be, knew what to do with a kilt. The pleats of the green-and-gold tartan fabric were crisp, the buckle polished, and the shirt above it was flawlessly starched and white. Helping Colin into a dark green jacket, Hill nodded his approval perhaps a shade more than professionally.

“Obliged,” said Colin. “I think I’ll do.”

He
didn’t
think he had any need of assistance putting on a jacket, but
when
in
Rome
and all that. Looking into the mirror to tie his ascot, though, he had to smile and shake his head. When he’d first become a man, or at least old enough to attend parties rather than sneaking down to pinch sweets and watch the guests, formal dress had been velvet knee breeches and matching coats. Tartan had just become
legal
again—and his father had said a few sarcastic things about that development.

His smile softened at the edges. He still missed the old dragon at times. Andrew MacAlasdair would have said a few more choice words about the image his son currently presented—probably ending with a sigh and a comment about “pleasing the wenches”—but they would have been affectionate underneath, an affection all the more meaningful because it wasn’t easy for the untrained to hear.

Colin cleared his throat and returned to the present. The house had ghosts enough. “You’re from the village, Hill?” he asked.

Hill, a blond young man who looked fully capable of wrestling an ox, nodded. “All my life, sir.”

“Ever heard of a woman called ‘Gammy Jones’? I’m guessing from the name that she’s not a recent arrival.”

Hill laughed. “Not at all, sir. I mean, no, she’s not recent, and yes, I’ve heard of her. Know her a bit. She was a great one for telling stories, even when I was young.”

In the way that mortals of twenty-odd years had, he spoke of his childhood as if it had happened before the Flood. By now, Colin was too accustomed to laugh.

“Could you tell me where to find her? In a day or two, of course—tonight I hear I’m going to meet every eligible lady in fifty miles.” He suspected he’d also meet a few technically ineligible ones, but he hadn’t known Hill long enough to make such a comment. He didn’t want a disapproving valet. “Hopefully I won’t have any shoes to track to their owners in the morning.”

“I shouldn’t think you’d have much trouble in that area, sir,” Hill said.

Colin raised his eyebrows. “Not the local girls’ sort?”

“Oh, no, sir.” Hill laughed again, glancing up to Colin’s face to see if he’d given real insult and almost hiding his relief when he found otherwise. “I mean to say, the lady in that story lost a shoe running away, didn’t she? I don’t think you’ll have to chase anyone tonight.”

“I’m not in the habit of running after women,” Colin agreed. “It’s been a long time since I bothered.”

He would have sprinted a fair distance after Reggie, though, if he’d thought that would avail him of much. When he stepped outside with the rest of the party to be sorted into various carriages, she was standing on the steps and looking out over the gardens. The last rays of the setting sun cast a gloss over her dark hair and made her skin glow almost as golden as the shawl around her shoulders or the ribbons on the ball gown she wore.

There were quite a number of gold ribbons, wound into elaborate patterns against sea blue silk. On a smaller woman, or one with less vivid coloring, the effect would have been overwhelming and fussy. On Reggie, the ornaments seemed only appropriate. The gown flowed over her legs, then clung to her slim waist and her breasts, which the low-cut bodice showed off to what Colin dimly thought was a very fashionable effect. It damned well was a good effect for
him
. Looking at her, he had to remember that he wore a kilt that evening and exercise all his self-control accordingly.

When the footman gestured for Colin to enter the carriage with her, he sent a silent prayer of thanks to Fortuna. Not that they were unchaperoned—Miss Browne came along with them—but that was just as well. Unchaperoned, Colin might have lost control of himself, and there was really only so much one could do to rearrange formal clothing.

As the carriage left the drive of Whitehill, he had to reconsider. Lovely as Reggie looked, there was nothing about her tonight that suggested she’d welcome his attentions. She gave him a smile and a polite greeting, but her eyes lacked the playfulness and the warmth that had been there on other occasions. She sat beside Miss Browne, upright as any soldier under parade inspection.

Seeking to lighten the mood, Colin looked from her to Miss Browne, all curls and rose-colored taffeta. “The two of you,” he said, “look like sunset over the Caribbean. Did you plan that? I’m afraid I ruin the theme.”

Both women laughed. Reggie’s laughter didn’t last as long, though, and her gloved hands clasped and unclasped in her lap.

Now Colin wished that the two of them were alone, and not so that he could tumble her. He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, or to take her hands in his, and ask her what was wrong. She might tell him, of all people. He knew himself enough outside of her world to be safe. He could have pointed that out, given a chance. Men and women had sensed that much about him before and been drawn to it.

Never before had he thought to offer himself as a confidante.

“Make it the Mediterranean,” said Miss Browne, “and you’ll do fine for a grove of pine trees. In Cypress, perhaps, around some ancient temple.”

“Either I’m flattered to be thought stately,” Colin said, trying to keep his gaze from sliding back to Reggie, “or I’m dismayed that you associate me with great age. I’m not sure I can decide which.”

“Oh, be dismayed, by all means. If you’re wrong, it’s much better to be relieved than disappointed.” Reggie looked at him when she spoke, but her smile was brittle and her eyes distant. “And men never have to worry about being old.”

“No?”
Colin
didn’t, not for a century or more yet, but he’d never thought that his sex had much to do with that freedom.

She shook her head, sapphire earrings swinging with the motion and brushing against the firm line of her jaw. “Women are old. Men are distinguished. Wealthy men, at least.”

“Wealthy women aren’t old, either,” said Miss Browne. “I’m not sure what they are.”

“We’d better find out sometime in the next twenty years,” said Reggie. “Not knowing what you are sounds much better suited to the young.”

“It takes energy to be enigmatic, does it?” Colin asked.

Miss Browne laughed. “Oh, it does indeed. Just ask Mrs. Osbourne. There was one party in London—” She unfolded a story that kept them all occupied through the journey, though she glossed over what Colin suspected were highly indelicate parts.

Reggie smiled and laughed at the right places, but she never lost her air of tension—as if bracing herself for some unpredictable blow—and though he tried to give his full attention to the story, Colin was all too aware that he was, well, all too aware that Reggie was distracted.

He wondered if his company made her uneasy now, if he’d caused offense in an obscure way since they’d flirted over cards, or if she’d simply reconsidered the flirting and the kissing and decided that she wanted no part of him. It wouldn’t be an unreasonable decision for a young lady of good character, even if the prospect did make Colin’s heart sink. He wondered if she was worried that he’d reveal how far they’d gone together, or her power, and wished that he had the privacy to reassure her.

Then they pulled up in front of Damarel Hall, a redbrick Gothic house crawling with spires and arches, and Colin revised his opinion. Far from being eager to get out of the carriage, as Colin would have expected had he been the problem, Reggie swallowed, took a breath, and stiffened her shoulders even more. Most humans wouldn’t have noticed the change. Colin knew that even he might not have, had Reggie been a stranger, but he did now. She was bracing herself.

Walking toward the doors, she suggested—only slightly, and to a very observant eye—a prisoner approaching the bar.

For the first part of the ball, Colin didn’t know why. Claire Stafford, a woman whose fair and immaculate good looks greatly resembled her sister’s, was warm bordering on effusive as she greeted Reggie. The puffily respectable Lewis was prim but pleasant. Colin wasn’t close enough to catch all of what they said to their niece, but at least from a distance, they seemed no worse than any other set of relations.

The ball, too, had nothing so dire about it at first glance. It might have been any of a thousand Colin had attended over the years: bright silk and gleaming jewelry, perfume warring with the smell of many people in the same room, voices rising and falling as the guests called to their friends or whispered in groups, the orchestra tuning up in one corner. Servants in dark clothing stood by the walls, taking wraps or pouring drinks. The skirts were slimmer than they’d been twenty years ago, and he could smell the earthy scent of gas behind the perfume rather than the faint sea tang of whale oil lamps, but all such changes just floated on the surface. The world did change, often deeply, but parties were always late to show it.

As he’d expected, Colin was the focus of considerable attention when he walked into the room. Nobody had likely heard much about him, but a man in a kilt stood out. And if nobody had heard much about him—well, nobody had heard much about him. Most coins had two sides. He met a few of the curious gazes and gave them his best only slightly roguish smile.

Then he noticed who
else
was attracting attention. Reggie caught the eye—Colin would have been the last person to deny that—but it wasn’t just men looking at her as she followed her family through the crowd, and the gazes weren’t all admiring. Colin saw one older woman lift her eyebrows as Reggie passed, then turn and whisper to her companions, who cast theoretically subtle glances back toward the Talbot-Joneses. Not everyone seemed interested, not even half the people in the room, but he noticed the speculating minority easily enough.

He couldn’t tell if Reggie did. The crowd swept both of them up in a flurry of introductions and small talk, and Colin went along, until one of the men he was talking to broke off a bad soliloquy on hunting to glance past Colin and give a low whistle. “By Jove,” he said, “there’s a chance tonight will shape up interesting after all.”

“How do you mean?” said a third in their party, a gangly redheaded chap.

Colin turned and followed the first man’s gaze. In the middle of the room, Reggie stood facing a tall, dark man. He was a little older than her, well-dressed and more than usually handsome, but there was no hint of romance between them, nor of anything tender. She stood at her most rigid, his mouth curved up in a sneer, and the air nearby suggested glaciers and icicles.

“Oh, Kimpton and the Talbot-Jones girl?” said the man who’d last spoken. “Engaged once, I’d heard.”

“Or nearly,” said the whistler, while Colin kept watching. Reggie’s aunt was watching the pair as well, her face not quite masklike enough to hide her anxiety. “She broke things off.
After
spending some time on a balcony with the chap, you understand—and he’d never say what happened. Came in looking white as a sheet, though.”

Kimpton said a few quiet words. Reggie replied. Kimpton gestured to a lady nearby, a pretty dark-haired woman in a modest silver-gray dress, who stepped forward. She and Reggie exchanged what looked like polite greetings. The idiots around Colin kept up their speculation.

“Probably earned himself a slap in the face.”

“That wouldn’t have thrown Kimpton. Besides, the girl came down from London for the summer, and you know that sort. If she came over maidenly, it was
very
sudden. If you ask me—I say, are you all right?”

Watching Reggie walk off through the crowd, aware of the eyes on her and knowing that she felt them too, Colin was only belatedly conscious of the question, or of what had prompted it—the dragon’s growl coming from his own chest. He spun back to face the men.

“Only amazed,” he said in his silkiest tones, “at how much grown men can sound like fishwives. Excuse me.”

He could have said more; he could have
done
more, without even changing shape or calling on magic. What little chivalry remained in him said to teach the men a sharp lesson.

The rest of him was old enough to know that it wouldn’t help—and that there were more important things to do.