An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (59 page)

“Of what were you thinking, my sweet?” he asked as he rose.

“I was thinking,” Beatrice replied sharply, sitting down on the sofa, “that things cannot continue as they are much longer. We must act and act swiftly. Either we find enough proof that the Duke is a Jacobite to send him to the block or else he must be disposed of by other means.”

Lord Niall’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you mean murder?” he asked bluntly.

“Why not?” Beatrice inquired. “I should not have imagined you were so squeamish as to delay as long as you have.”

Lord Niall’s eyes dropped before hers.

“It is not as easy as it sounds,” he replied. “There is still justice in the land – yes, even in Scotland.”

Beatrice gave a little laugh.

“Then you
are
afraid,” she taunted. “Poison, a quick stab in the dark – who is to guess that yours is the assailant hand?”

Lord Niall shrugged his shoulders.

“Strange though it seems, Ewan has few enemies and there are those who are well aware that I should not grieve unduly by his death.”

“Then you should be more careful in whom you confide.”

Beatrice sounded not only corrective but also scornful, and Lord Niall turned to take both her hands in his.

“What you bid me do I will do,” he said solemnly. “When I strove only for myself, I admit that murder seemed too dangerous a method of dispatch, but now, when your fate is linked with mine, there is nothing I would not do.”

Beatrice disengaged her hands from his and rose from the sofa. A, sudden anger rose in her so that it was with the utmost difficulty that she prevented the words which seemed to burn her tongue from being spoken impetuously and with violence. It was intolerable that Lord Niall should presume to plan her future with his and imagine conceitedly that she would stoop to become a legal part of him.

For one moment the truth almost overwhelmed her self-control, then caution asserted itself and she remembered that Lord Niall was an instrument she must use, as she had used other and better men at different times. She walked as far as the window and then swung round to face him.

“What then do you suggest?” she challenged.

Lord Niall took several quick steps towards her.

“You are lovely,” he said hotly. “So lovely that I find it hard to think of anything but your beauty.”

His tone was hoarse with passion, but with a little gesture she forbade him to touch her.

“I asked you a question,” she said quietly.

“Come close to me,” he replied. “Let me hold you for one moment. I have a feeling that you have withdrawn from me. Tell me I am imagining it, tell me with your own lips that you love me.”

Beatrice’s eyes rested for a second on his face, on his outstretched hands, and then she turned away.

“There are other matters more important than love,” she said stiffly.

Her words ended in a little cry, for Lord Niall had stepped forward to grip her arms above the elbow, to turn her round to face him with a roughness that was brutal. Angrily she looked up into his face, then shrank, almost appalled, from the burning darkness of his eyes and the sight of his teeth bared from his tight lips.

“Tell me you love me,” Lord Niall said in a voice she hardly recognised. “Tell me now and at this moment or I swear I will kill you with my bare hands.”

His nails dug into the soft flesh of her arms until the pain was almost unbearable. As she did not speak, he drew her nearer and nearer until her head fell back before his and his lips were on her mouth.

He kissed her cruelly, bruising her lips in a passion in which there was no tenderness, nothing but a fierce, devouring lust. At last he released her, breathless and shaken, her eyes wide with a sudden fear.

“You had best not drive me too far,” he said and watched her raise her lace edged handkerchief to wipe the blood from her lips.

With an almost superhuman effort Beatrice contrived to speak lightly.

“You forget that I am only a woman,” she said and glanced down at the livid marks of his fingers on her arms.

“I assure you that I am in no danger of forgetting that,” he replied, and again she was afraid, just as someone might be afraid of a wild animal.

Then with one of her bewildering changes of mood, which enabled her to captivate any man, however difficult, Beatrice smiled at him, her eyes soft and liquid as she raised them to his before veiling them with her long dark lashes.

“I have always loved strong men,” she murmured. “You will make a strong Duke, Niall.”

At her words some of his tension seemed to relax.

“As you know, I am ready to prove myself.”

“Then let us make plans.” Beatrice clasped her hands together. “I have thought of something!”

“What is that?” Lord Niall asked curiously.

“The girl,” Beatrice replied. “You said last night that you thought the Duke had given food to the prisoner because he wished to stand well in that chit’s eyes. Had you a reason for such a suspicion?”

Lord Niall shrugged his shoulders.

“There might be something in it.”

Beatrice glanced towards the portrait of the Duke between the windows.

“We must not ignore the possibility,” she said. “It appears to me, Niall, that we have paid too little attention to ‘
Miss Iona from France’
.”

She turned from the portrait, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

“Will you question her?” Lord Niall asked.

“Better than that,” Beatrice replied. “Command my maid to come here with my smelling salts. I will instruct her what to do – then you find the girl and bring her to me. But not here, the Duchess might interrupt us. I will talk with her in that room across the landing where we found you both together on the day of my arrival.”

“The Chinese Room!” Lord Niall supplied.

“Very well, the Chinese Room. Bring her there, but first I would speak with my maid.”

Lord Niall rang the bell and a footman was dispatched in search of Abigail.

Beatrice smiled.

“If this fails,” she said silkily, “we must trust in your strength, my dear.”

Lord Niall met her eyes squarely, and strangely enough after a second her glance fell before his. She bent down to straighten the roses that were bunched under the hoop of her gown. Lord Niall watched her and there was an expression of triumph on his face as if he knew that he was the master.

The door opened and the maid crossed the room, a bottle of smelling salts in her hand.

“Did you wish for these, my Lady?” she asked. Her curtsy was demurely respectful.

Beatrice glanced towards the door to see if it was closed.

“Listen, Pollard,” she said. “In a few minutes it will be the hour for the servants’ midday meal. Go downstairs, but instantly make an excuse to retire. Hurry to the second door to Miss Iona Ward’s bed chamber, search it thoroughly and make no mistake on this, for if she is clever, as I suspect, she will conceal anything that needs concealment with forethought and cunning. But I have faith in you, Pollard. There are few places so secret that you cannot suspicion them out. Now hurry and do as I say.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

The maid’s face was expressionless as she curtsied and left the room.

“Can you trust her?” Lord Niall asked.

“She is better than a ferret,” Beatrice replied. “This is by no means the first time I have set her such a task.”

“I can well believe that,” Lord Niall answered, “but never before has there been a task of such import to you and to me.”

“But of course not!”

There was a touch of sarcasm in Beatrice’s reply, but Lord Niall did not hear it.

“I will go and fetch the girl,” he said as if anxious for action.

“I will wait in the Chinese Room.”

Lord Niall opened the door and Beatrice swept across the landing, her silk skirts rustling as she moved, her long earrings of pearls and diamonds swinging against her white neck. Lord Niall watched her until the door of the Chinese Room closed behind her, then he drew in a deep breath.

The fire in his eyes had not entirely died away since his outburst in the Crimson Salon. His fingers clenched themselves slowly and cruelly and his mouth was brutal. He seemed to be thinking of the future so with an effort he remembered the present. He glanced round as if wondering in which direction he should go in search of Iona, but at that moment she appeared at the top of the staircase leading from the second floor.

As she began the descent, somewhere in the depths of the castle there was the sound of a great bell. Iona wore a cloak over her shoulders. She did not see Lord Niall at once for, as she descended the stairs, she was intent on putting a small lace handkerchief into a tiny satin reticule hung at her waist.

She was nearly at the bottom of the stairs before she glanced up and saw who was waiting. For a moment she stumbled and put out her hand to the banister to steady herself. Then she came on slowly, her head held a little higher, her whole body stiff, instinctively defiant.

“Good morning, Iona.’

Lord Niall stepped forward and his tone was unexpectedly friendly.

“Good morning, my Lord.”

“Are you going out?”

“I had planned to take a short walk.”

“Would you first be so obliging as to wait upon Lady Wrexham in the Chinese Room?” Lord Niall asked.

Iona shot a quick glance of suspicion at him.

“Why should Lady Wrexham require my presence?” she inquired.

“Her Ladyship was saying but a few minutes ago,” Lord Niall replied, “that she had unfortunately found but little chance of talking with you since her arrival. She expressed a wish for your presence, but if you are otherwise engaged, I can, of course, inform her Ladyship to that effect.”

“No, no, of course not,” Iona said quickly, feeling that she had been rude. “I will repair at once to her Ladyship. Did you say she was in the Chinese Room?”

She would have turned to cross the landing but Lord Niall barred her path.

“I have not been able to recapture your friend,” he said. “Does that give you satisfaction?”

“It does indeed,” Iona answered gravely. “He should not have been detained in the first place, as your Lordship well knows.”

“There you are mistaken,” Lord Niall replied. “I was right in my suspicions, and one day I shall be able to prove it. The only thing I would like to know is, what magic did you use to transport him from the Keep?”

Iona smiled.

“I am not a witch, my lord, though there are times when I wish I were.”

“Indeed! Would it be indiscreet to ask you on what particular occasions you would use your superhuman powers?”

“It would not be difficult for me to answer that question, but it would be unwise,” Iona said. “I will leave your Lordship to guess where my sympathies lie.”

She knew she was being daring in speaking to Lord Niall in such a manner, yet somehow at this moment she was not afraid of him. She merely despised him for his cruelty to the Duchess, for his intrigue with Lady Wrexham and for his allegiance to the English Throne. Yet when she looked at him again, she knew that she must not underestimate his power to hurt her and beneath her momentary bravado every instinct in her body told her to beware of him.

As if he half guessed what she was thinking, Lord Niall gave a short laugh then stepped aside to let her pass.

“Her Ladyship will be waiting,” he said in tones of exaggerated courtesy.

“I will go to her at once,” Iona replied and moved swiftly towards the door of the Chinese Room.

She entered the room to find Beatrice sitting in the wide window seat, her profile exquisite against the blue sky outside. She turned her head as Iona entered and gave her a friendly smile of welcome.

“So his Lordship found you?” she said in a soft voice. “Come and talk to me, for there has not been a moment until now when we could make each other’s acquaintance.”

Slowly Iona crossed the room to the older woman’s side. Her intuition warned her all too clearly that this friendliness was a trap of which she must be very much on her guard.

Beatrice put out her hand.

“Sit here,” she said, patting the padded cushion on the window seat. “How pretty your hair is, but, of course, many people have told you that before.”

“I thank your Ladyship for the compliment.”

“Must we be so formal?” Lady Wrexham said. “My name is Beatrice and yours, I know, is Iona. We are both strangers in this castle, a frightening place too, do you not agree?”

“Frightening?” Iona queried.

Beatrice gave a little shiver.

“Yes, indeed, but all Scotland is the same with their feuds and risings and spying one upon the other. I vow that I feel the very stones taking note of what I say.”

“But then your Ladyship is English,” Iona said, “I suppose one feels different when one is a Scot.”

“Like yourself?” Beatrice smiled. “But are you so sure that you are in fact of this land? I understood from Lord Niall that you claimed to be his sister.”

“Whether I am proved a MacCraggan or not,” Iona replied stiffly, “I shall still be of Scottish blood. I am as sure of that as I am sure there is a God above us.”

Beatrice gave a little laugh.

“So vehement! Oh, what it is to be young and full of enthusiasm! I am growing old and tired, and find myself convinced of very little. But let us not talk about me, let us talk of you. Tell me what you think of the Duke?”

“His Grace has been kind enough to offer me the hospitality of the castle.”

“And I am sure he has been kind in other ways.”

But Iona did not reply and after a moment Beatrice added,

“He is extremely handsome, do you not think so?”

“ Yes – Yes, indeed.”

Iona’s tone was cold to the point of indifference.

Beatrice glanced over her shoulder, then she whispered,

“I hear tell in London that he is a Jacobite, what think you of that?”

“His Grace has not confided in me, ma’am.”

“But you have your suspicions nevertheless,” Beatrice added with a smile, “and you suspect me of being in the other camp. My dear, how blind you are! If you but knew the truth, it would surprise you.”

“I doubt it, ma’am,” Iona replied.