Folly's Reward (4 page)

“Matty, and—” He stopped and looked blankly at her. “I’m not sure if that’s right.”

“Matty who? John who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What other names come to mind, sir?”

He stepped up to the stove and opened it. The glare cast red light over his high cheekbones and touched sparks of fire in his hair. He loaded more fuel.

“Helena.” The word escaped with his breath, soft as a caress.

“Who’s Helena? A little sister?”

“I don’t think so.” He ran one hand over his head. “Dear God, how absurd this makes me!”

Prudence felt a surprising rush of compassion. Dear Lord, whatever he was, what a frightful predicament this must be for him!

“You must choose a name for yourself. We can’t go on referring to you as the drowned gentleman, can we?”

“Very well, what do you suggest?”

“You said your name began with ‘P’, or maybe ‘H’. Peter, Paul?”

He grinned at her. “Percival, Philoctetes? Hector, Hyperion, Hercules? Polycrates, Plutarch? Ah, Miss Drake, how nice to see you smile again. Hannibal?”

Prudence forced her brows together in a frown. “Percy, Philip, Patrick? Hugh, Henry, Harold? Does nothing ring a bell?”

“Henry, Harold—the bell begins to tinkle somehow. Oh, dear God, of course! ‘Harry the fifth’s the man, I speak the truth.’ I believe I am named after Prince Hal, angel. ‘Hal’ rings a distinct bell. In fact I believe it rings a carillon, enough to shake the bell tower and deafen the campanologist. You may call me Hal, Miss Drake, if you please.”

“Hal who?”

His expression closed, whether from desperation, frustration, or deliberate concealment, Prudence couldn’t say.

“Now that’s another question for another time, don’t you think? Like Tantalus, I’m starving, Miss Drake. Allow me to escort you to breakfast.”

* * *

The mist did not entirely burn off until the next week, when bright sunshine at last streamed unhindered into the courtyard. Prudence sat by the nursery fire mending clothes as Bobby played with a pile of blocks. She couldn’t stop thinking about Hal. There seemed to be nothing she could do about Bobby’s affection for the man. And her hostility to this disturbingly handsome stranger only resulted in Hal’s teasing her even more unmercifully.

So she had avoided him, and done her best to keep Bobby out of his way.

For an entire week.

Yet for an entire week, she had not been able to stop thinking about him. Every day she would hear his laughter and the ring of his boots. His eyes watched her at every mealtime, even though she kept her gaze firmly on her plate. And she had dreamed about him again—every night for a week.

It seemed like an unpardonable treachery to herself, and filled her with fury.

When she stepped out into the yard first thing the next morning, she found him sitting on the mounting block, the sun sparkling on his dark hair. Very much at ease, his long legs stretched before him, Hal wore one of Mr. MacEwen’s old coats. He was vigorously polishing his boots.

Prudence tried to ignore him, but as she walked past he looked up and laughed.

“‘And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?’ / ‘As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle—?’”

Which was Prince Hal and Falstaff, wasn’t it? All those evenings spent reading aloud with her father and the other children around the fire came flooding back. She stopped and turned to face him.

“I do not mean to be inhospitable—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, rubbing hard at the salt stains. “I don’t blame you. I asked for honest emotions, so I can hardly complain if that’s what I’m getting. Yet Drake isn’t generally a Scottish surname. Are you, too, hiding behind a name that may not be your own?”

“My father came from Devon to study medicine in Edinburgh. He met my mother there, married her, and stayed in Scotland. There’s no mystery about it.”

“Which says nothing as to why you’re so afraid.”

The cold breeze chilled her face. “I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. I know fear when I see it. You’re afraid for Bobby, and not just because he’s so recently orphaned. But if you are indeed hiding here, you’re being very foolish, angel.”

Panic beat beneath her bodice. “What has Bobby told you?”

“Nothing to concern you, not even who he really is, for I haven’t asked.” His blue gaze seemed sincere, even indignant. “I would not steal secrets from a child.”

“We’re here for a little holiday, that’s all.” She hated to lie to him, but how could she risk the truth? “We’re not hiding, though I think perhaps you are. Have you recalled anything more about yourself?”

Hal closed his eyes for a moment. “Shadows,” he said. “Dreams. Little that makes sense. Your name is English, but you have lived your life in Scotland. I have no name, but—”

“But what?” she asked.

He thrust on his boots and leapt lightly to his feet. “But I know this: I’m not used to cleaning my own footwear. And I’m certain that I’ve never been this far north in my life.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Who could forget this place?” He glanced away at the peaks rising behind the Manse. “A landscape that sinks so deeply into the soul? There’s nothing tame here, nothing easy, nothing familiar. I am more swallowed up by these mountains than any seal swimming the far ocean.”

“You must have been going somewhere in Scotland,” Prudence said desperately. “Surely it was only chance that brought you here?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” His blue gaze seemed seductively open, even vulnerable, but then he laughed and bowed. “Perhaps I came here to find you.”

Which caused Prudence to flush unhappily with color and flee back inside.

Yet Hal had so easily insinuated himself into the household. He seemed to have a natural gift with children. In spite of her attempt to warn him off, every day he had offered a feast of games and stories that enchanted Bobby.

Mr. MacEwen happily announced that he had found a willing hand to help him with his work. Mrs. MacEwen had been thoroughly charmed out of all of her dire suspicions.

So by the time the sun returned to Argyle, Hal had taken over the room in the stable as if he owned it, and had the run of the Manse as if he were an honored and trusted guest.

Prudence sat with Bobby for a while as the child built a tower with his blocks, then she walked restlessly to the window. Dear God, Hal could be anyone!

But it was becoming clear what he was not. He was not an ordinary, comfortable person. He wasn’t safe, or reassuring, or easy to understand. Hal was not like the boys or young men she had known while she was growing up, the respectable daughter of a country doctor. And he was nothing like her brothers.

As she stood staring blindly out at the sleeping mountains of Lorne, gunfire shattered the silence—two shots in quick succession, followed by the unmistakable thud of lead balls hitting a soft target. Prudence whirled around.

Faster than she could react, Bobby jumped up, the blocks tumbling unheeded behind him, and ran from the room.

Prudence found Bobby hanging onto the five-barred gate that led from the courtyard into the sheep runs behind the workshop.

“Look, Miss Drake!” Bobby called. “Mr. MacEwen has made a new pistol, and Hal is trying it out.”

Prudence watched as Hal primed and reloaded a pair of dueling pistols that Mr. MacEwen had finished making earlier that week. Hal was in his shirtsleeves, with the cuffs rolled back to show his strong, lean forearms and clean-boned wrists. He wore no cravat. Instead, his rough work shirt lay open at the neck, the collar twisted carelessly. His hair was a little long. It overhung the high collar by several inches at the back.

“They’re a little short in the barrel for my taste,” he said to the older man. “But they don’t lack for accuracy, and the trigger approaches the dishonorable in sensitivity. A deuced fine piece of work, sir.”

With a pistol in each hand, Hal spun toward a paper target, which Mr. MacEwen had fixed to the side of his haystack. Almost casually Hal lifted each arm in turn, and fired.

“Another two bull’s-eyes!” Bobby squealed.

Prudence knew very little of firearms, even though gunsmiths kept workshops at Dunraven. But she could recognize expertise when she saw it. A stunning proficiency lay in every line of Hal’s figure—in the careless, masculine stance, the perfect line from shoulder to hand and along the barrel, the passion that concentrated his expression. The target had been neatly punctured four times in the exact center. Hal was a dead shot—and with either hand, for heaven’s sake!

She bent and caught Bobby around the shoulders. This could ruinously increase his hero-worship for the stranger. Only the promise of warm scones in the kitchen was enough to make the child jump from the gate and run inside, out of harm’s way. She watched him go with unrepentant relief.

“An awkward skill, don’t you think, angel?” Hal asked.

Prudence turned and looked up at him. He had left Mr. MacEwen examining the pistols, and walked over to her. Sunlight glanced off the ruffled hair over his forehead, casting shadows onto the clean bones of his face.

“What do you mean?”

“That I should show such a nasty and thorough proficiency with firearms.” Hal looked thoughtfully at the target. “What do you think that reveals about me?”

“I don’t know,” Prudence said. “Most gentlemen shoot, don’t they?”

She felt foolish and inadequate in the face of his easy confidence.

He grinned. “Well, thank goodness for that! But the real question is: What kind of gentlemen?”

“What do you mean?”

“A gentleman may enjoy shooting at his pheasant, or even possibly at his neighbor if they should quarrel, but he’s not generally going to devote himself so exclusively to mayhem with a pistol that he would bother to devote unending hours of practice to it. And that”—he nodded at the target—“speaks to an unhealthy amount of time in a shooting range.” He laughed suddenly. “Perhaps I am a gentleman of the road?”

Prudence sensed danger as clearly as if he pointed a pistol at her heart.

“Oh, goodness! You think you are a highwayman?”

“We can’t be sure, can we? Do you think I am dedicated to a life of crime, angel?”

“Please, don’t,” Prudence said.

He looked down at her. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t call me
angel
! It’s silly and inappropriate.”

He touched her hair lightly where it swept over her ear into her severe bun. It was the briefest, most impersonal of caresses and his hand dropped immediately, but she felt the effect of it shake her to the knees.

“No, it’s not,” he said gently.

Prudence colored. “And improper and overly familiar.”

“Is it? I wouldn’t wish to truly distress you, but a highwayman is used to treating ladies with cavalier gallantry, isn’t he? Didn’t the infamous Claude Du Vall dance a coranto with a lady victim on Hounslow Heath? To the music of her own flageolet, no less.”

“How could she play if she was dancing?” Prudence asked.

The blue eyes surveyed her gravely. Yet beneath the seriousness of his expression, laughter bubbled like water boiling below a pan lid.

“The tale doesn’t say. Perhaps her maid was also proficient at the flute. And then he took her jewels, her husband’s money, and her heart, of course. ‘Du Vall, the ladies’ joy; Du Vall the ladies’ grief’—he ended up in Newgate.”

Prudence ran one hand firmly over her hair as if to brush away the lingering trace of his hand.

“A proper end for such a villain.”

“‘Thither came ladies from all parts / To offer up close prisoners hearts / which he received as tribute due, / And made them yield up—’” Hal stopped and grinned. “Alas, it becomes just a little indelicate, Miss Drake.”

She could see that he was teasing her. It left her a little lost, but she met the challenge with one of her own.

“My father was a doctor. I am not naive, nor a shrinking violet. You cannot stop now.”

He laughed. “‘And made them yield up love and honor, too.’ But only symbolically, we must assume, for the gallant Du Vall would have been in chains. Of course, he could have kissed them—if they cooperated.”

Prudence hated her betraying high color. He must think her a bluenose. “Unless he could afford a private room off the jailer’s yard?”

“Either way, he was hanged at Tyburn. Do you suppose I am one of his company, and a wanted man?”

“I don’t care who you are, sir, as long as you’re not a danger to Bobby and me.”

Prudence wished fervently that he had never come to Argyleshire and that he would go away soon.

“Ah! But why should anything or anyone be a danger to you and a five-year-old boy, Miss Drake?”

Fortunately she did not have to reply. A rattle of wheels echoed up the driveway. Mrs. MacEwen and her maid were returning from town with the shopping. Their gig stopped at the gate. Mrs. MacEwen smiled at Prudence as Mr. MacEwen came up to join them, but there was a genuine worry in her eyes.

“We have a problem, Mr. MacEwen,” she said. She was avoiding Hal’s gaze. “That report about the ship from France that went down was, by the blessing of Providence, false. Not that I can think it right that our ships should visit France at all. Be that as it may, she was driven north by the storm, but she came into harbor three days ago. Battered and torn, Mr. MacEwen, but with all hands—and all passengers, not a one lost overboard.”

“Did she?” Mr. MacEwen asked thoughtfully.

Now everyone was looking at Hal. He leaned back against the gate and folded his arms across his chest.

“How very awkward, to be sure,” he said. “In that case, where did I come from?”

“Which is the very question that I would like answered, sir.” Mrs. MacEwen’s voice was edged with disappointment. She had fallen very completely for the handsome young stranger. “For unless you came from a shipwreck, it seems very ill-mannered to be found half drowned on the beach.”

She whipped up her horse and drove on into the yard.

“Alas,” Hal said with a quiet laugh. “‘Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’”

Prudence glanced up at him. He seemed only amused by this disastrous news. How could he be so cavalier about it? She turned away to follow Mrs. MacEwen into the house.