Heather and Velvet (13 page)

“Jamie,” she whispered in dread.

“A
ye lass. ’Tis Jamie Graham. In the flesh.” His hazel eyes narrowed dangerously. “Ye’re seein’ better than ye used to, ain’t ye?”

Prudence took another step backward. “I went to London. I had an operation.” She was a terrible liar and they both knew it.

To her shock, he flung a wiry leg over the windowsill and climbed into her room. No man other than her papa had ever set foot in her bedchamber. She hugged her night rail tight around her.

“Maybe it was a miracle,” he said. “You one of them Catholics?” He wiggled his bony fingers at her. “Did a priest sprinkle holy water in yer eyes? I don’t want no one sayin’ Jamie Graham don’t understand miracles. Me own da’s a minister of the kirk.”

In her surprise, she forgot her fear. “Your father is a minister?”

“Aye, that he is.” He leered at her. “Don’t it show?”

“Of course,” she said faintly. “I suspected it from the first moment we met.”

He brushed dirt and leaves from the seat of his pants onto her pristine rug. “Damned ivy.”

Prudence drew herself up. “I wish it had been rose bushes. It would have served you right for daring to spy on a young lady.”

Her indignation did not trouble Jamie. His gamin face crinkled in a smile. “Nice place ye got here.” In horror, she watched as he flung himself on the bed, crossing his ankles and resting his head on folded hands as if he planned to stay. “Very nice indeed.”

He gave the down mattress an experimental bounce before jumping up. His boots left dirty smudges on the counterpane. She jerked up her bolster, brushed it off, then clutched it in front of her. Her eyes widened as Jamie careened around the chamber like an elf run amok.

He scooped up her gilt hand mirror and surveyed his foxlike face from all angles, then puckered up and blew his reflection a kiss before lifting her hairbrush to his matted mop. At her helpless sound of dismay, he turned the brush over in his hands and studied it with a sly smile.

“Worth a pretty shilling, if ye ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” she said, desperate to rid her chamber of the horrid creature.

He tried on her spectacles and splashed a dab of rose water behind each ear. “The ladies love a good scent on a man, don’t they? That’s what Sebastian told me.” He spun around on the stool. “Look what it’s done for him. Two lovely lasses under one roof. Which room does he come to first every night? Yers or hers?”

Prudence’s trembling ceased. She felt dangerously close to using the hairpin in her hand. Jamie had good reason to be thankful it wasn’t a loaded pistol. “I don’t think rose water was what Sebastian had in mind. Would you please leave my room?”

Jamie’s mischievous grin faded. He rose, shrugging his thin shoulders. “Never say Jamie Graham don’t aim to please the ladies. I thought ye might be lonely while Sebastian was out gallivantin’ with the other one.”

He started for the window, casting her a wounded glance from beneath his sparse auburn lashes.

“Wait.” Prudence startled herself as curiosity overcame both anger and fear. She might never have a better opportunity to learn about her aunt’s enigmatic fiancé. “Is Sebastian Kerr his real name?”

Jamie shrugged again. “It is now. Used to be Kirkpatrick. Sometimes we just call him Kirk.” Sighing, he sank down on the window seat. “Why is it every time I’m in a lass’s bedroom, I end up answerin’ questions about him?” His voice shifted to a whining falsetto. “What color does he like? What’s his favorite food? What pleases him in bed?” He snorted. “If I knew that, they wouldn’t need to worry about it, would they?”

“He wouldn’t be very pleased to know you’d been here, would he?” She dared a sweet smile.

He acknowledged her threat with a mocking smirk.

“Have you ever been to his home in the Highlands—Dunkirk?”

“Aye. Tiny snuck me up there one night when we was hidin’ out.”

“What is it like?”

Jamie shook his head at the memory. “A crumblin’ hole of a castle perched at the edge of heaven itself.”

Prudence sat down cross-legged on the carpet, still clutching the bolster. “If it’s such a hole, why does he risk everything to gain it back?” Her real question remained unspoken.
Why will he even marry Tricia for it?

“ ’Cause he don’t want a stinkin’ MacKay to have it. The MacKays and the Kerrs have been sworn enemies since the massacre at Culloden. Sebastian’s ma came all the way from France to be MacKay’s bride. Sebastian’s da kidnapped her and kept her for his own. MacKay swore revenge. When Sebastian’s da dropped dead in his boots, MacKay took Dunkirk. Sebastian was little older than a lad. There was nothin’ he could do to stop him.”

“Did you know Sebastian’s father?”

“No.” Jamie shuddered. “But Tiny told me about him. He was the meanest son-of-a-bitch whose boots ever shook the heather. Did ye see the scar under Sebastian’s chin?”

She nodded slowly, hesitant to remind Jamie of her nearness to Sebastian in the crofter’s hut.

“That’s where his da’s ring caught him when he dared to shed a tear at his own ma’s burial. ‘Men don’t cry,’ he told him. And the lad little more than a babe himself!”

Prudence twisted the bolster in her hands, caught off guard by the dangerous welling of emotion in her throat.

“Lass?” Jamie’s voice was surprisingly kind.

She lifted her head, blinking back unshed tears.

He cocked his head to the side, studying her. “Back at the hut, Tiny didn’t understand what Sebastian saw in ye. Ye ain’t really his sort, if ye know what I mean. But I can kind of see it now. Ye ain’t so bad. When ye came out of the house that first day, I thought it might be ye he set out to marry. It would have made good sense to keep ye quiet that way.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

Jamie shifted his weight from window seat to windowsill. “Look, lass, just watch yer back when he’s around.”

She stood, letting the bolster drop to the floor. She barely felt the brush of the kitten against her ankle. “Why?”

“Ye know what they say about curiosity and cats.” He drew his forefinger across his throat.

She glanced down at her cat. When she looked up again, the window was empty and Jamie was running fleet-footed and silent across the lawn. Prudence stood for a long time, staring at nothing and shivering in the warm night breeze.

A
ghostly tapping came on the window. Prudence stiffened in her bed, holding her breath. Tap. Tap. Tap. Her fingers curled around the counterpane as she weighed the wisdom of pulling it over her head. Not Jamie again, please, she prayed silently. Not two visits in the same week. The tapping ceased. She rolled to her side, hoping she was dreaming.

A shower of pebbles struck the window, shattering a glazed pane with a tinkling crash. A slurred curse followed. She leaped out of bed and tiptoed to the window, picking her way among the shards of glass.

She peeped out the window.

A figure stood on the lawn below, bathed in a puddle of moonlight. “ ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Prudence is the sun.’ ”

She ducked behind the curtains. She
must
be dreaming, she thought. Why else would a Highland bandit be standing beneath her window misquoting Shakespeare?

“ ‘Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious—’ ”

She jerked up what was left of the window. Sebastian’s
idea of a stage whisper was enough to awaken Tricia’s dead husbands sleeping in the family crypt. “Ssssh! Have you lost your senses, Sebastian? One more word and I shall rouse my aunt.”

The reproachful look he gave her would have shamed an infidel. Prudence’s breath caught in her throat. She had forgotten what a dashing figure he cut in full Scottish garb. A belted kilt matched the black and green tartan of his stockings. A silver brooch secured the pleated plaid draped over one shoulder. His knees were bared to the warm night air.

She frowned as the import of his dress sank in. “Whatever are you doing? You’re supposed to be in Edinburgh.”

He bowed mockingly and almost stumbled. “I stopped off in London to pay my respects to King Georgie.”

She leaned out the window. “This is no time for jests. What will Tricia do if she finds you on the lawn dressed like that? What will Sir Arlo do?”

“He’ll probably shoot me again.”

Prudence’s hands froze before she could slam the window back down.

Her mouth went dry. It could be a trap. She was the only one at Lindentree who knew his true identity. Jamie’s warning spun through her mind. She would be a fool to step into the deserted night with him. She poked her head back out the window, prepared to send him away with a scathing denouncement.

He gave her the lopsided smile of a rumpled Highland angel. “I need you, Prudence.”

A piece of glass stabbed her toe as she threw on her wrapper and ran for the door.

Prudence pounded across the dew-slick lawn, her wrapper billowing wildly behind her. She tripped over a short box hedge and silently berated herself for forgetting her spectacles. Her nightcap bobbed over her eyes. As she rounded the corner of the house, her heart shuddered to a stop. The
lawn below her window was deserted. Moonlight shone on empty grass.

She must be dreaming, she thought. When she looked down at herself, she’d probably be naked.

She dared a glance downward. The comforting folds of her modest wrapper still enveloped her.

A muffled grunt drew her forward. Sebastian leaned against the iron trellis. His arms were crossed, his stance casual. Freed of its queue, his hair tumbled around his face. The soft light of the new moon dusted the tawny strands to silver.

As he stepped away from the trellis, his legs gave way and he crashed back into the unyielding iron. His long lashes fluttered down over his eyes. Even in the thin light, his pallor was apparent. Before the plaid sank back into its folds, Prudence saw the dark stain spreading across his white shirt.

She snatched off her nightcap and pressed it beneath the plaid. Fear made her gruff. “You fool. Were you going to stand out here all night and bleed to death?”

“The thought did occur to me. Would you have felt any remorse when Boris dragged my mangled corpse up the front steps in the morning?”

“None at all. Though it might have spoiled my breakfast.”

She dabbed at his shirt, praying he would not feel the violent trembling of her hands. The nightcap seemed to be soaking up an alarming amount of blood.

He gave a drunken hiccup. “Sad waste of a perfectly good nightcap. It looked enchanting on you.”

He shuddered at her touch, and she realized it was not liquor that slurred his words and gave him that stupid grin, but the pain he was struggling to hide.

Tears stung her eyes. She lowered her head before he could see them.

He brought the tip of her heavy braid to his lips. “The pain’s not so bad. The ball only grazed me. The powder burn hurts worse than the wound.”

She dared not meet his eyes. “A few more inches and it would have been your heart.”

“No danger of that. I left my heart here.” His voice faded as he buried his face in the curve of her throat, resting some of his weight on her shoulder.

“We must find a safe place for you.”

She hooked his arm over her shoulders, supporting his weight when he would have staggered. Together they slipped through the long casement-windows in the parlor.

Sebastian shook his head, then faltered, the motion making him dizzy. “Not my chamber. It’s not safe. Tricia’s been known to make nocturnal visits.” His hands fluttered. “Like a bat.”

Prudence struggled between laughter and wanting to drop him. She could think of only one room in the house that no one bothered to visit. She was so unfailingly tidy, even the maids stayed away from her bedroom unless summoned.

As she pushed open her door, a ball of down twined around her legs with a questioning mew. She shushed the kitten and eased Sebastian down on her rumpled bedclothes. He fell face first into her counterpane, sighing with contentment. She gently righted him, then moved away to light the candle.