A Scandalous Scot (27 page)

Wouldn’t it be nice if Morgan could do the same?

It was one thing to marry her because of his sense of honor. But was she supposed to live in this narrow little box in Morgan’s mind? She couldn’t meet with Mr. Seath—Mr. Seath!—in the garden, lest someone think it was scandalous. What else couldn’t she do?

Oh, she didn’t even want to know.

The West Tower was the most difficult tower to access. Furniture was stored there, as well as armaments. Evidently, the MacCraigs had been excessively bloodthirsty in the past. They could cover every single wall at Ballindair with knives, dirks, swords, and shields, and still have weapons left over.

Aunt Mary had insisted that even the storerooms be cleaned from time to time, but she had never been assigned the West Tower. Only the most skilled and experienced maids were allowed to touch these artifacts.

Strange, that most of the ghosts of Ballindair weren’t involved in warfare. Instead, they centered around a MacCraig’s treatment of a lover or a wife.

Jean went down a set of darkened stairs, making her wish that she’d had the foresight to bring a lantern. Most of Ballindair corridors were lit by gas lamps. An expensive luxury, she’d been told, but the Earls of Denbleigh deserved no less.

At the bottom of the steps she hesitated.

Instead of turning left, toward the West Tower, she turned right and headed for the kitchen. At this time of night there was still activity inside, and every single person stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her.

There, that was a sign, if nothing else, of her change in station. Before, no one would have commented, or even noted, her appearance.

By her marriage, she was no longer friends with the staff of Ballindair. She was, instead, the person to be served, and possibly ridiculed, when the staff relaxed or the work for the day was complete.

Each of them looked at her, resentment evident on their faces. She could almost hear their thoughts:
What’s she going to make me do now? Doesn’t she know I’m tired and want to go to my bed?

Diane, a maid of all work, came forward.

“Yes? What do you want?”

She and Diana had gossiped about the laundress, had laughed at various jests a footman had told, had marveled to each other about the treasures kept in Ballindair’s rooms. Now, the girl was looking at her as if she were a stranger. Worse, an enemy.

How foolish she’d been. She couldn’t serve herself. Doing so would only give rise to more gossip.

Acting like a maid, she was, for all she married the earl. Is she going to clean the scullery next?

“I’d like a candle, please,” she said, giving no further explanation.

Should she ask for something to eat? No, she had no intention of fueling the fire of gossip. No doubt they already knew she wasn’t in the dining room. She could only imagine what stories they’d tell.

Begging for a scrap, she was. Don’t the earl let her eat with him no more?

Diane nodded, retreated to the storeroom. When she returned, she had a beeswax candle—another sign of Jean’s rise in status—inserted into a small silver candlestick. Diane held out a matchbox and the candlestick, and Jean took them both with a nod.

“Thank you,” she said, before turning and leaving the room. If she were brave enough, she’d stand just outside the door and listen to what they said about her. But she wasn’t that courageous, so she walked back to the base of the tower, lit the candle, and slowly made her way to the second floor.

The West Tower was the first one built at Ballindair. Several changes had been made to the other towers over the years, but here the windows were mere arrow slits, letting in only a faint stream of moonlight.

Everywhere she looked, crates and trunks were stacked on top of each other, and several objects, too large to be crated, were covered in sheets.

She sat down on a crate, holding the candle in her left hand and arranging her skirts with her right.

The problem with ghosts was they were always invisible or nearly so. Sometimes, she was certain she’d felt a ghost pass by, or experienced a physical sensation that had no observable cause.

After several moments she said, “Why should anyone believe in ghosts, really? It’s not as if there’s substantial proof of you. When you tell another person you’ve seen a ghost, he looks at you oddly. And another thing, why doesn’t everyone become a ghost? Is a ghost someone who was miserable in life? Or someone who precipitated his own death? Or, perhaps, someone who regretted the deeds of the past?”

No one answered her. Nor did anything move.

She looked around her at the shadows.

“Do ghosts live in heaven? Are they given permission to return to haunt the living? Or do they live here, at Ballindair? If so, why can’t we see ghosts during the day? Must you sleep as well?”

In the next moment the air felt a little chilly, enough so she could see the breath in front of her face.

She studied the candle’s flame, amazed to find her hand shaking just a little. She steadied it by gripping her wrist tight and resting the candlestick on her knee. Because she was staring so fixedly on the flame, when she looked away all she saw was a bright white glow against the darkness. A figure shivered and shimmered.

She blinked, and the room swirled around her. As she opened her mouth to speak to the ghost, the room tilted, her head felt absurdly light, and she was sent tumbling to the floor.

Chapter 25

RULES FOR STAFF:
You are allowed one-half day off each month, never to be taken on a Sunday.

J
ean hadn’t been feeling well enough for dinner, but she was evidently feeling well enough to leave her room.

When Mrs. MacDonald met him at the door of the Countess’s Suite, having been summoned with some degree of haste by a maid he’d encountered, Morgan folded his arms, stared at the woman and said, “Where is my wife, madam?”

She looked a little surprised by his question, which only made him repeat it.

“Where is my wife? Why is she never in her room?”

The housekeeper just blinked at him.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Your Lordship.”

“Do you always lose your maids with such alacrity, Mrs. MacDonald?”

She drew herself up and looked at him in a rather queenly fashion. “I do not, Your Lordship. However, Jean is no longer a maid. She is your wife.”

“Then she should behave like a wife.”

To his surprise, Mrs. MacDonald took one step back, away from him.

Had he suddenly become contagious?

“I will endeavor to find out where Jean has gone, Your Lordship. Shall I send her to the Laird’s Tower?”

“Simply find her, Mrs. MacDonald,” he said, further annoyed by that question. Did she think he’d sought out his wife simply for entertainment? No, his reason for being here was more important than that.

She nodded once, then turned and left the room.

As he sat in Jean’s sitting room, he realized she hadn’t made an imprint on the room at all. No personal possessions dotted the top of the bureau. Nothing sat on top of the vanity. Did she even have any personal possessions?

At Ballindair he was surrounded by those things he needed to guard and protect for succeeding generations. Had she nothing at all?

What had he given her in the short time they’d been wed? The clan brooch at their wedding, but then he’d immediately suggested she give it to Mr. Seath to place in the strongbox.

He stood and walked into her bedroom, going to the armoire. He had no right to rifle through her belongings, a thought that made him hesitate for only a moment.

He opened the two drawers to find they were only partially filled with threadbare undergarments. After opening the doors, he was unsurprised to find only three dresses there. Her wedding dress, a uniform, and the dress she’d worn yesterday morning.

Lillian had so many clothes, another room had been given up to them, a series of armoires holding day dresses, evening dresses, corsets and pantaloons made in France, laced festooned creations that had cost him a fortune.

He closed the armoire doors, disturbed and curiously unable to define what he was feeling. If Jean had married him for his wealth, she’d yet to solicit him for funds. Why the hell hadn’t she come to him and asked him for jewelry? Or a monthly allowance?

Why exactly had she married him?

She hadn’t wanted to, that much had been clear from her impassioned speech on the eve of their wedding. Nor had she been a cheerful bride. Instead, she’d looked on the verge of tears several times during the ceremony.

What had she said?
You need to find someone of your own rank, Your Lordship. Someone who would be thrilled to be a countess.

She hadn’t appeared overjoyed to be a countess. Whenever he called her “Your Ladyship,” she flinched. He’d never seen her give anyone an order. She hadn’t wanted to change anything at Ballindair to suit her. She wasn’t suddenly interested in traveling to London, Edinburgh, or Paris. Nor had she asked for anything for Catriona or her aunt.

Why the hell had she married him?

When Mrs. MacDonald returned, he’d ask the status of his wife’s wardrobe. Perhaps he should import someone from Inverness. And cloth—did they have enough and in the patterns Jean preferred? He’d have to meet with Mr. Seath and have the man purchase a wagon full of the stuff. Anything she wished. And he’d have the strongbox brought to him, so he could retrieve the MacCraig brooch. And money, he’d give her money.

Maybe that would be an inducement for her to remain in her room.

Mrs. MacDonald didn’t even knock on the door, merely opened it.

“Do you presume upon your relationship with my wife?” he asked, annoyed on Jean’s behalf.

“I beg your pardon, Your Lordship?”

“You will knock, Mrs. MacDonald, every single time you come into this room. Just because Jean is your niece does not negate her right to privacy. Do you understand?”

She nodded swiftly, her face changing to a pink hue.

She was not going to treat Jean as if she was some scullery maid. He pushed the thought out of his mind that she’d been a scullery maid once, by her own admission.

He’d been a boy once, yet he would bridle if anyone treated him that way now.

“Have you found her?” he asked.

“We haven’t, sir—” she began, only to be interrupted by a girl’s excited voice.

“Come quick, ma’am, come quick. She’s dead, she is!”

Morgan would forever remember Mrs. MacDonald’s terrifying composure.

She raised both hands, palms parallel to the floor, and lowered them slowly, as if to calm the girl’s hysterical utterance by gesture alone.

Surprisingly, it worked.

“Who is dead, child?”

Even he knew the answer to that question. He shot an impatient look at the housekeeper.

“It’s Jean, ma’am.” The girl sent him a frantic glance, curtsied, and corrected herself. “Her Ladyship, ma’am. She’s dead, she is!”

“I’m sure she isn’t,” Mrs. MacDonald said, still exhibiting an unearthly tranquility. “Have you found her?”

He wanted to shake the woman.

“Yes, ma’am. In the West Tower, ma’am. With all the crates and trunks. It was Rory who found her, ma’am. Near burned to death.”

Mrs. MacDonald glanced at Morgan, and only then did he see the frantic worry in her eyes. His estimation of her rose a notch.

“Very well, we shall see for ourselves.”

In a reproachable violation of manners, he preceded the housekeeper and maid out the door. Later, he’d apologize. For now, he was intent on reaching Jean.

The West Tower, that’s what the maid said. He began to run.

When you were a little boy, did you ever go hunting for ghosts?
Jean’s question on that night in the Long Gallery. What had he answered? Something about being in the West Tower. Even as a boy, he had been forbidden to play in the West Tower. Too many dangers lurked among the crates and trunks. Too many armaments that could injure him, not to mention the two cannons stored there. The MacCraigs were nothing if not prepared for famine, siege, and war.

The tower was the perfect place for a boy to play, to pretend to be one of his murderous ancestors. When he’d gone there in direct disobedience to the rule, he was found out, of course, and summoned to the library, to stand before the massive desk and listen respectfully to his father’s lecture.

“Have you no idea of the dangers that might befall you?” his father had asked.

Morgan hung his head, staring at the floor.

“I want your promise you’ll not go there again.”

Dismayed, he stared at his father. When asked for his oath, he gave it, knowing he’d never break it. A MacCraig kept his promises. A MacCraig never broke an oath.

He had. One of the more important:
Until death us depart
. But Providence or serendipity had given him a second chance in the form of his new marriage.

He raced up the steps of the tower, pushed past the crowd of people at the narrow door, and saw Jean crumpled on the floor.

For a moment he couldn’t move. The air smelled not of smoke but of flowers, a scent he couldn’t define. A silver candlestick was on the wooden floor, a scorch mark forming an arrow point to where the candle lay a short distance away, extinguished.

His feet finally began to move, and he said something or did something or made some gesture—he wasn’t sure what—but people parted to allow him to enter the overcrowded circular room.

Her hair was spread around her head, the black cloak parted at the knee. He patted it back in place, then raised a trembling hand to her cheek before lifting her into his arms.

She couldn’t be dead. Jean couldn’t be dead.

Chapter 26

RULES FOR STAFF:
Staff are allowed to eat only after the family has partaken of meals, and only those items allowed by the majordomo, housekeeper, or steward.

“I
f you stayed in your room nights, madam, none of this would have happened.”