Bride (2 page)

“Aye,” Mairi said, smiling fondly. “I dinna know how the poor man stands all the questions, but he's good wi’ all the tenants and their bairns and he's uncommon fond o’ Max.”

Justine's heart lifted. “These are good things, Mairi. Children need firm but kindly guidance.”

Mairi still smiled. “That young Max's stories! Och, ye've never heard the like.”

“Oh, but I believe I have,” Justine said, remembering previous encounters with Max's outrageous imagination. “Surely the children are in the castle now, though.” She glanced through thick, wavering windowpanes at a sky turned to shades of smoke-streaked pewter.

“No,” Mairi said.

Justine regarded her seriously. “What does their nanny say to that?”

Mairi mumbled something unintelligible.

“Where is the nanny?”

“There's no nanny, m'lady. It's part o’ the trouble.”

Justine wasn't illuminated.

Mairi sighed a resigned sigh. “I'd as well tell ye everythin’ I know. At least I'll tell it true and ye'll not be hearin’ the lies o’ others.

“The viscount came a few weeks before the marquess and marchioness left. We'd not known about Miss Ella and Master Max until then. But there was some sort of… Och, I don't know. There was anger. Then the marquess decided to leave and asked his brother t'take care of Kirkcaldy the while.”

“Reasonable enough,” Justine remarked.

“Seemed t'be,” Mairi agreed. “Although the viscount dinna want t'stay at first. That's why I was t’ remain behind—in case I could be o’ use wi the children. Everythin’ went well enough once the marquess left. Until the letters started coming.”

“Letters?”

A fresh tide of scarlet washed Mairi's cheeks. “Now I really have forgot my place. I don't know anythin’ more about those letters, but they started him off like … like a wild man, all right. Now he's livin’ in the old marquess's huntin’ lodge—his grandfather built it—and if anyone was to come askin’, none o’ us is t'let on he's there.”

“I see,” Justine said. She didn't.

Mairi trod determinedly to the door. “The children live at the lodge wi’ him. Alone. There's no nanny. No servants at all. I think he rides here in the night t'check the vestibule for more o’ the letters. They're t'be left there for him. And we're t'say not a word t'anyone on the matter. Not even to the master when he returns. There. I've told the truth— though I'd better have held my silence. Holdin’ it all in and fearin’ someone ought t'know was troublin’ me. If I've done wrong in tellin’ ye, I've done wrong. But I'll not say another word.”

Justine held her breath before asking, “Are there any letters awaiting the viscount now?”

“One,” Mairi said, letting herself out of the room. “And it's just like the others. Scented like holy incense and sealed with a bloody fingertip. I'll get the tea.”

Later in the evening Mairi had settled Kirkcaldy's new visitor in comfortable apartments. Convincing the maid that her charge preferred to attend herself had taken more persuasive talent than Justine had known she possessed. The dear girl had finally left, still shaking her head, and making Justine promise to ring for assistance at any hour of the night.

Justine had waited until midnight passed before slipping out of her rooms. The gray stones of the ancient castle seemed to settle more tightly and deeply as they waited out the night. Moving toward her goal, Justine shivered, but not from cold. She could almost hear the rustle of dresses and the scuff of shoes from the many others, living and dead, who had passed this way before her.

For once her wretched leg had proved an advantage. Naturally no direct mention of Justine's limp had been made, but she had been discreetly and solicitously ushered into rooms only one flight of stairs from the ground floor and a fairly short distance from the great entrance to the castle. Having spent her life in homes as large and larger than Kirkcaldy, she was accustomed to finding her way among endless twisting corridors and hundreds of rooms.

But not in near darkness.

Still fully dressed in rustling black gros de Naples, she moved as swiftly and silently as she dared, holding the bannister with both hands as she descended the stairs to a dim corridor leading to the vestibule.

He wouldn't come. What would she say if he did? What would he say if he saw her?

She would simply say, “Hello, Struan.” Yes, that would be perfectly appropriate.

The corridor opened into the vestibule where standing suits of armor gleamed dully on all sides. A massive battle relief, in white plaster and placed aloft above a great, bare fireplace, gave off an eerie glow. The wall sconces had been allowed to burn out and the candles never replenished—another evidence of servants slacking about their duties while their employers were not in residence.

Struan should … But Struan obviously had larger concerns than burned-out candles and slothful servants.

Justine reached the cold flagstone floor and crossed an expanse of carpet she remembered from her arrival as red Persian.

She stopped, pressed her fists into her stomach, aware of being cold but not caring.

He wouldn't come.

If she was seen here by a servant she'd be the one causing mean whispers belowstairs.

To the left of the huge double front doors, a black archway suggested a porter's nook. Justine approached cautiously and peered inside. As her eyes adjusted, she made out a wooden bench where some appropriate servant should have been ensconced and ready to perform his duties at all times.

She would rest on the bench—for a few moments—then return to her apartments and sleep. The journey from Cornwall had been long and tedious.

But she would rest here first. For a few moments.

She settled herself.

A clock ticked. Not loudly—but definitely. She could discern the instrument only as a corner shadow.

When she moved, the bench creaked.

The darkness seemed to have a substance, a thickness that settled around her, cool and oppressive—and alive.

Darkness was not alive; she was not a fanciful woman.

“Modest, circumspect, pious, and above reproach.” How often had she been complimented on her virtues by Grand-mama's friends?

Virtues!
The devil take virtues. The time had come to make one last grab for happiness, and Justine was willing—no, glad to toss her virtues to anyone in need of them in exchange for freedom.

She could stay at Castle Kirkcaldy if she wanted to. No one would be rude enough to tell her she wasn't welcome.

Ooh, what a moonstruck widgeon she was. She stood up. Why had she thought Struan might be glad to see her? Why had she thought he'd welcome the proposition she'd decided to make him?

Footsteps sounded on stone outside the castle doors.

Justine plopped back down and held her breath.

An echoing grind meant the iron ring handles were being turned. A scrape, followed by a rush of icy air, told Justine someone had opened the doors.

Why had she dared to come?

She would hold very still, make not a sound, and return to her rooms the instant she could do so without being seen—by anyone.

Heavy steps clanged on flagstones. Scrabbling sounded and light flared from a candle atop an ancient chest opposite Justine's hiding place. Before the chest, his back to her, stood a tall, cloaked figure.

She heard a drawer opening and the rustle of something being removed. Then she heard a low, angry oath and tried to grow at once smaller.

The man paced out of her sight, then back again, his boots cracking on stone, his cloak swinging away from his powerful shoulders. His voice came to her in a low, rumbling, unintelligible stream. It was Struan's voice.

Then he stopped pacing and stood, in profile, his sharply defined jaw outlined against the candle's light.

And this time Justine's heart did stop beating entirely.

Struan bore with him the very wind that streamed through the still-open doors. The cold air, snapping with scents of moor and mountain and crystal night, flowed about the folds of his cloak and settled in his ruffled black hair.

Struan, Viscount Hunsingore, appeared a man at one with the night. The flickering flame caught the glitter of eyes as black as his hair and his slanting brows. Shadows found the lean planes of his face, the slash of high cheekbone and straight, narrow-bridged nose. The same flame glimmered on white teeth between flaring, drawn-back lips.

Night became the man, even when rage made of his features a stark mask. Perhaps especially then.

She was not herself.

Without thinking, she walked into the archway to see the man she loved more clearly.

His head snapped toward her.

Justine took a backward step and stumbled. The cold had stiffened her leg.

His eyes narrowed, but then he moved. Swiftly. He strode toward her as she moved farther into the tiny porter's room.

“My God,” he exclaimed, reaching for her.

She felt her lips part, but she couldn't form a word.

His strong hands clasped her waist, lifted her, swung her. Justine was a tall woman, but Struan was so very much taller.

She was sure he was angry with her. He'd found her spying on him in whatever this trouble was that turned his eyes the shade of devils’ designs.

He swung her around and up into his arms. “Justine,” was all he said, his voice breaking a little in its depths.

She still could not speak.

“I cannot believe this,” he said, holding her against his wide chest.

Justine dared look no higher than his beautiful mouth. The scents of the untamed Scottish country prickled in her eyes and wrinkled her nose. His hair—longer than when she'd last seen him—curled at the high collar of his cloak.

At last she managed to say, “I did not mean to startle you.”

“You almost fell,” he said. “It's too cold for your leg here. You should be in your bed.”

He didn't ask why she was here, why she'd come when she ought to know Arran and Grace weren't here.

“Oh, Justine,” Struan said, and when she raised her eyes to his, she almost gasped at the intensity she saw there. He didn't smile. “Praise the Lord for letting me find you in this place on this hellish night, my lady.”

Words deserted her once more.

He was about to speak again, but blinked and seemed to realize he held her in his arms and that such a thing was extraordinary—and inappropriate.

“Forgive me,” he said, shaking his head. “I forgot myself.” Very carefully, he carried her to the bench, set her gently down, and sat beside her.

Struan took her cold hands into his own and chafed them with long, supple fingers. “I cannot believe my good fortune. You cannot know how I needed to set my eyes upon you.”

Her mouth turned dry and she struggled to think why be should seem so delighted to find her here.

“Please tell me you'll spare just a little time for a man in need.”

A little time? She'd spare him her entire life. “Of course,” she told him. “Tell me, Struan. Tell me what you need.” She had undoubtedly been wrong to employ falsehood to bring about this meeting, yet it appeared a nobler cause than her own might be served.

Struan simply looked at her. Holding both of her hands in one of his, he touched her cheek, rested a thumb on her lips.

Justine could not draw a breath. Surely he gazed at her with affection?

“I need very little, my dear one,” he said at last. “All my soul requires is this chance to look upon a woman beyond reproach and above deceit.”

Chapter Two

S
truan bent forward, surrounding the woman who sat sideways before him on his horse, shielding her from the gale with his cloak and the heat of his body.

She had refused to allow him to leave the castle without her. “A mature female may choose to come and go as she pleases,” she'd informed him tartly when he'd reminded her that her absence would be questioned. “I shall take a warm outer garment and write a message for the maid. Since none seemed particularly pleased at my arrival, none should be less pleased by my departure.”

He smiled into the unkind night. From the moment he'd first met Lady Justine Girvin, he'd felt her quiet, patient strength, but he would never have wagered her stubborn.

They'd traveled some miles. The big black he'd appropriated from the castle stables several weeks since, followed the narrow trail north with unerring ease. Their destination lay beyond Castle Kirkcaldy's outermost fortifications, in the hilly area of the estate where Struan's grandfather had built his hunting lodge.

“Your leg?” Struan shouted against Justine's ear. “Are you too uncomfortable?”

She shook her head but made no attempt at a reply. There had been no question of alerting attention by going to the stables for a second mount.

Apart from her final pronouncement that she would go with him whether he approved or not, Justine hadn't spoken at all since he'd confessed how glad he was to see her. In fact, if he didn't know her to be a woman of few words by nature, he'd wonder if she'd had some recent and deeply disturbing experience. Perhaps his inappropriate exuberance at the castle had embarrassed her.

They climbed upward and entered a forest of sycamore and oak. By daylight budding leaves were visible. In the vague glimmering of the cloud-veiled moon, gnarled tree limbs laced overhead to fashion an arching canopy that swayed, snapped, and whined.

On the far side of the forest lay a slope where the trail wound downward in wide switchbacks to a slim valley, then uphill again to a pine-crowned knoll. The huge hunting lodge, his grandfather's only known act of fanciful extravagance, sprawled amid the shielding barrier of those pines.

Tossing his head and blowing clouds of vaporous breath, the black toiled a little on the final uphill pull. Justine sat rigidly before Struan, and he reached past her to lay a gentling hand on the animal's neck.

“Not much farther,” he shouted.

She only nodded.

Cloud slipped across the moon, turning out the light over Kirkcaldy. The faintest touch of silver struggled to keep its hold beneath a lowering sky—then faded completely. Soon there would be rain in the wind. Struan could feel it.