Highland Bachelor 02 - This Laird of Mine (19 page)

She scowled. “You’ll pay . . . for this.”

“I already have.”

A howl of rage followed him down the passageway as Jules made his way to the others.

C
laire hardly dared to hope as they raced down the tunnel. The girls were alive? Her stomach knotted in panic. Her heart pounded in her ears. They had to be alive. There was no other outcome that she would allow herself to imagine.

They would be well. Unharmed. Whole. The wish filled her thoughts and echoed in her steps as she held back a sob and ran faster. She was dimly aware of Jules behind her.

She reached the main part of the cavern and turned toward the left, heading down the right tunnel, where Arthur had said he’d seen the girls.

It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be.

They were alive.

She held on to the thought as she ran into the glow of the light ahead. Inside the chamber, similar to the one they just left, sat a large sarcophagus. David was on one side of the lid, while Arthur and Penelope were on the other, straining to shift the heavy stone off its base.

“We’ve only moved it the slightest bit,” David informed her as she joined them in the center.

Claire pushed against the solid limestone with all her might. Still it refused to budge.

“Let me help,” Jules said beside her, joining her in the effort. The five of them strained and pushed, until finally the lid shifted, scraping along the limestone base with a grinding whine. Slowly, it inched back, revealing more and more of the darkness inside, until finally half of the grave was exposed.

Claire swallowed and gazed dully into the darkened space. No sound came from within. There was nothing but stillness in the chamber. Beside her Jules bent, he reached inside the deep stone tomb.

Her heart thundered in her ears.

“I see them,” Jules said, the sound muffled by the heavy stone. He straightened and motioned for David to join him. One more time he delved into the dark tomb and came back with first a blonde-haired girl, then a brunette.
Anna and Eloise
.

They were both limp and pale as the men set them on the floor. And yet . . .

“They are breathing, Claire. Both of them,” Jules said, his face grim in the light of the lanterns.

Claire could feel tears of profound thankfulness running down her cheeks. The girls were alive. She knelt beside fourteen-year-old Anna and smoothed a finger across her cheek. “Anna? Can you hear me?” She reached for thirteen-year-old Eloise and smoothed the young girl’s hair back from her face. “You are safe now. I’m here.”

When neither girl responded, she turned to look at Jules. “Why are they like this?”

They both turned to Arthur. “I did not see what they did to the girls, only where they put them before the henchman came looking for me.”

“They might have been drugged,” Jules offered, his voice rough. “Agatha did always like her potions.”

“Or they could have shut down to protect themselves from the terror of being closed off in total darkness in a tomb with its original occupant,” David offered.

Claire shuddered. “How could she be so cruel?”

At Jules’s stark look, Claire wanted to go to him, to comfort him. It must have been terrible living with such an evil woman during his youth. A mother was supposed to provide love and support to her children, not stage her own death and send her child, even a stepchild, to suffer in his own private hell.

Fighting her instincts, Claire turned back to the girls. She balled her fists at her sides with the effort it cost her to hold back her sympathies. What was once between her and Jules was over. He had said so himself. She would not make a fool of herself and press her unwanted emotions upon him. “We have to get them out of here. Perhaps the fresh air outside will bring them around.”

Jules bent and picked up Anna, while David drew Eloise into his arms. Claire put her arm around Penelope’s shoulders, and they all made their way back to the moonlit night. They walked in silence through the streets of Edinburgh until they returned to Claire’s studio.

In the mausoleum, Agatha heard a scurrying sound and panic flared. Rats. Creatures of darkness. They were coming to get her.

She tried to pull herself upright, then screamed in agony at the effort. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps. Blood flowed from the wound in her side, teasing the rats with the promise of a meal. They wouldn’t care that she was still alive. They would crawl in her hair and gnaw at her flesh, until they finished what Jules had started.

She heard scurrying again.

“Murdoch?” she called to the lifeless man beside her. “Wake up, you miserable toad. Get me out of here.”

At his silence, Agatha dug her fingers into the rock floor, inching herself forward. She had to move, had to drag herself to safety before the rats came any closer, or before the authorities arrived.

Her work was not yet done.

Again, she dragged her body across the cold rock floor. The movement made her dizzy with pain, and yet she continued, anger and pain fueling her movements.

She heard the rats scurrying again, closer this time. Exhaustion overtook her movements, and she lay against the floor, breathing hard. If she didn’t move, she would die here in the darkness. The creatures, they would devour her, and that would be the end of her revenge.

Inch by inch she made her way down the tunnel, toward the light. She had to get to the light. The creatures would not follow her there.

The light would see her through. Then and only then would Jules, Claire, David, and Penelope be vanquished from this earth forever.

Upstairs in Claire’s studio, Jules looked on as his wife bathed both the girls, who had woken from their stupor on the way back to her home. The physician had been to see them and pronounced them both well.

And the authorities had been sent to the tomb after Agatha, only to report that the woman had vanished, leaving just a trail of blood behind. They had followed the path out of the kirkyard, but then the trail had disappeared.

Jules hoped it meant the woman had perished, but he knew better than to trust that she was gone without cold, hard evidence. Agatha was like a phoenix, always rising from the ashes. She would continue her revenge if she could.

And Claire would remain a target unless he set her free.

She was his wife.

Only three days ago he had told her that wasn’t enough to keep them together. He regretted those words but knew they were the right ones if he wanted to keep her safe. The only way to minimize the threat to Claire and her wards was to stay away from them, away from her.

He could leave David behind to protect Claire and her girls. He doubted he would have to do much convincing in that area. David seemed particularly fond of Penelope. Jules went to speak with David.

He had to let Claire go.

The next morning, Claire found herself dressing with particular care in a gold gown trimmed at the neck and sleeves with sage-green lace. She was not dressing for Jules, she assured herself, even though she knew she was. If this was to be their good-bye, then she wanted to at least be remembered well.

When she came into the studio, she saw that Jules, too, had taken pains with his attire. He wore a crisp white shirt beneath his MacIntyre tartan. She stopped at the stairs to admire his beauty and his strength. She would paint him like that—paint this final memory of him in his full splendor. She curled her fingers at her side, fighting the urge to grab a brush and begin that task. Instead, she committed him to memory.

At her approach, he met her gaze. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she replied, coming fully into the chamber.

They were silent again and she didn’t know how to break the charged stillness in the room. Jules was different this morning. The easy rapport that they had developed over time at Kildare Manor was gone and all that remained was the tingling awareness of each other’s presence.

The silence between them lengthened.

“How are the girls?” he asked finally.

“Better. They are even talking again. I think David was correct in his assumption. The shock of the kidnapping and their subsequent torture was too much for them, and they both shut down.” She walked about her studio, from easel to easel, until she stopped in front of a canvas bearing a landscape. She’d started the oil painting the day before Jules’s unfortunate solicitor had approached her about marrying Lord Kildare.

At the thought of the solicitor she turned to Jules. “I was just thinking about James Grayson.” She paused. “Do you think Agatha had him killed?”

“Most likely she drove the carriage,” Jules replied solemnly.

Claire shivered. “She could be out there.”

“She’s not after you.”

Claire frowned. “How do you know that? How does anyone know what goes on in a disturbed mind like hers?”

“We don’t, thank goodness.” He moved to stand beside her. “We know nothing except that she is injured and—”

“Injured animals are the most dangerous of all. They have nothing to lose.”

“She’s not after you and the girls anymore, Claire. She wants me to suffer. Me.”

Claire could not argue with that. “How will you protect yourself?”

“That’s what I want to talk with you about. It is time to say good-bye.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “It is time for us to stop hurting each other, and quit while we are ahead.”

She gazed at him wordlessly as he turned her hand over and lingeringly pressed his warm lips to her palm.

Intimate. Warm. Tender.

And final.

He was saying good-bye. Forever.

“Jules, I don’t want us to—”

“There is no us.”

He dropped her hand. “Good-bye, Claire. I wish you well.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond but turned toward the door. A heartbeat later he was gone.

Claire couldn’t breathe. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and now he was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her fist in her skirt. She had known when all this began that she risked everything, including her heart. And at first she had tried to protect herself, to keep herself from falling in love. But the moment he had looked at her by the loch with both pain and desire in his eyes, she had done it anyway.

Now there was no going back, no way to fall out of love with him. He had made it perfectly clear he did not want her.

It was time to return to her old life. She fingered the edge of the oil painting next to her. She had to convince herself it was what she wanted, even though she knew it was not.

She turned away from the painting and grabbed an already-prepared canvas and her charcoals. She set to work on the initial lines of the painting, letting her fingers guide her instead of her brain. She drew a sweep of a shoulder. A powerful arm. Soon a shape emerged. The shape of a man. It was the image of Jules standing in her studio, looking powerful and unforgettable.

Her fingers stilled. How could she do it? How did one forget a man like Jules MacIntyre?

She picked up the canvas and threw it across the studio. It was pointless to torture herself. It was over between them. He would soon petition for a divorce. She would be alone again with her painting and her girls. The thought made her chest tight and brought tears to her eyes.

She was a fool to fall in love with him. And yet, despite it all, she loved him still.

He was gone. It was what he wanted.

She could still hear the sound of the door closing in her mind. And she wondered if she would ever forget that sound or the feeling of emptiness that followed.

On the seedier side of town, Agatha lay in a narrow bed while a sawbones she had bribed out of his bed with gold coins cauterized her wounds with a hot knife. The pain should have knocked her senseless; instead she gathered it around her heart, allowed it to fuel her need for revenge against Jules and his little bride.

A glow of warmth that had nothing to do with the scalding blade in her wounds settled over Agatha. Comforted her. She should be angry that fortune had robbed her of the chance to kill Jules, but that was not the case. Now her precious stepson knew he was hunted, and every last moment of his life would take on a new importance. He would most likely hold those he loved closest to him, protecting them from harm. And she would be there watching and waiting.

When the end was finally near, and she took every last loved one from him, as she had his brother, it would be in a dazzling explosion of pain and grief, sorrow and panic.

It was that thought that soothed Agatha’s pain and frustration and caused her to smile in pure joy as the scent of burning flesh filled the chamber and her spirit was once again restored.

O
ne week after he’d returned home, Jules said good-bye to Jane, Nicholas, Margaret, and Hollister. Since he had safely returned to Kildare Manor, his friends were eager to return to their own homes to await the births of their children.

Alone in the suddenly empty halls of Kildare Manor, Jules tried to purge Claire from his mind and tear her from his heart. He knew he was losing the battle when he found himself upstairs in the room he once hated for so long. Suddenly it seemed to be his favorite chamber in the house. He would stop in the center of the ballroom and lose himself in Claire’s painting for hours on end.

Claire stood in her studio, staring into empty space.
Jules
. She closed her eyes and pushed the thought away, just as she had done every day since he’d left her behind a week ago. She had tried cleaning her studio at first in an effort to forget him. She’d scrubbed every splatter of dried paint from the wood floor. She’d walked through the streets of Edinburgh with the girls. But every time she saw something beautiful, something inspiring, she wondered what Jules would think if he looked at it with her. How he would respond?

And she always ended each day right where she stood now. In her studio. In front of the half-drawn image of Jules she had started when he had left. A frisson of excitement shivered along her skin as she gazed at the image. Her fingers curled at her sides, and before she could stop herself, she grabbed her palette and her paints and set to work. Perhaps if she put him on the canvas, she would be free of him in her mind.

Or at least that was the hope as she lost herself in painting.

Two weeks later, Jules found himself sitting alone in the drawing room. He gazed into the flames in the hearth, trying to concentrate on an estate ledger, but it was Claire he saw in his mind and not the columns of profit and cost.

Even so, the estate was beginning to recover. His tenant farmers had returned and were preparing the soil for a crop of winter wheat. The estate was starting to repair itself.

If only his heart would do the same.

Claire finished her painting of Jules a week later, and still he continued to haunt her.

She spent her days with the girls, teaching them new techniques in painting. Recovered from their ordeal, Anna and Eloise had finally returned to their usual behaviors. The younger girls had even started to laugh again, as they did now, filling the studio with their high-spirited voices while they painted a still life Claire had set out for them of a candlestick, a book, and two apples.

Penelope had not recovered as quickly. Her once-cheerful face now held an ever-present sadness, and her lovely blue eyes seemed haunted. Penelope sat in a chair before her easel, her brush in her uninjured hand, arrested above the canvas. She could learn to paint left-handed if she tried.

But instead of trying, the girl had been withdrawn and without spirit since the events at Kildare Manor. Claire could feel tears of sympathy burn in her eyes, but she blinked them angrily away. They could not change what had happened, only how they responded to it. If only she could get Penelope to respond.

She had tried to be consoling. She had tried to inspire her. She had been firm, and she had simply held Penelope in her arms and let her cry. But nothing seemed to change that look of desolation in her eyes, nothing except David. Only when he was near did she brighten.

Claire walked slowly across the studio and lifted her cloak from a hook on the wall. She nodded to the guard David had hired. “I will return shortly.” To the girls she said, “Keep painting. I have a short errand I must attend to.”

The younger girls nodded. Penelope simply stared at the blank canvas with a dull and hopeless look in her eyes.

The August air was crisp, yet the sun shone overhead as Claire hurried down her street, past the coaching inn, and into the heart of Edinburgh. She was on her way to David. Perhaps he had an idea of how to return the vivaciousness to Penelope’s spirit.

As she headed toward the rooms David had let a few blocks away, she passed by the storefronts. The sound of the shopkeepers and tradesmen hawking their wares filled the late-morning air with a cacophony of noise mixed with the jangling harnesses of the carriages and the steady beat of horse hooves on the cobbled streets.

Darting through the crowd, Claire slipped closer to the buildings to avoid a cart filled with cabbages when she passed by a jeweler’s shop. At first she walked right past, but something familiar caught her eye. She stopped, retracing her steps until she stood before the window, staring at a gold and ruby ring that could only have come from one source.

Jules’s mother’s ring.

Had he sold it?

Surprised and a little unsure, she went inside the shop.

“May I help you?” an older man asked, coming around a small desk in the corner of the shop.

Claire pointed toward the window display. “The gold and ruby ring in the window, did you purchase it recently?”

The old man nodded as he reached for the ring, holding it between two fingers. “That I did. A fine purchase, if I do say so myself. They don’t cut the rubies like that anymore.” He pulled out a pair of fragile glasses from his pocket and, setting them on his nose, scrutinized the ring through the lenses. “Everyone wants sparkle. But the rich color is far more valuable. Are you looking to purchase this ring for yourself?”

Claire laughed. “I might be, if I could know a bit of its history. Can I ask from whom you purchased such a fine piece of art?”

The old man looked at her over the rim of his lenses. “Came from a young laird who appeared a little down on his luck.”

“I see,” she said, trying to appear uninterested in the piece even as a shiver rippled across her flesh. “How much are you asking for the ring?”

“Sixty shillings Scot.”

Claire tried not to react to the outrageous sum. She frowned and turned away from the ring. To show how much she wanted that particular ring would only increase the cost. She had to make him think otherwise. “What else do you have to show me? I want something with rubies.”

The shopkeeper’s smile slipped as he looked about his cluttered shop. “Hmmm.”

“Well, if you have nothing else,” she said in a calm and even voice as she turned toward the door.

“Wait,” he called. “The ring is all I have with rubies. If you would just take another look. It is an exquisite ring.”

Claire sighed. “I had my heart set on a pair of earrings to wear to the Davisons’ ball this Saturday . . .” She strung the words out, hoping the shopkeeper would bargain with her. She had nothing to lose.

“Forty shillings Scot.”

“Thirty.”

He released an audible sigh. “All right, my dear. You drive a hard bargain, but I agree. Thirty shillings Scot.”

Claire nodded. “Hold the ring for me. I will return on the morrow with the funds.”

He agreed, and Claire left the shop before she either cried out her delight, or swooned. She had a feeling the latter was far more likely. Once outside, she leaned against the first wall she came to, and pressed trembling fingers against the cool stone.

She had found Jules’s mother’s ring—the only link she would ever have to Jules or his family. Once she saw the ring in the window, she knew she had to do anything and everything to possess it.

Her breath caught. And she had made it her own. Now all she had to do was figure out some way to get the funds by the next day, or all her efforts would be for naught.

When the initial exhilaration of bargaining for what she wanted so desperately wore off, she realized she had the answer to her problem already. The lie she had concocted about Lady Davison was not entirely false. The woman had asked her to attend a ball at her winter home in Argyll the following year, after Claire painted a ceiling for her that would make her the envy of her friends.

Claire had met the woman in the ballroom of Kildare Manor, at the party Jules’s friends had planned. Perhaps it was time for Claire to agree to hire out her talents. Lady Davison had said she would agree to any terms. Would she be willing to advance Claire her fee before she had even started, and allow the girls to come along with her?

There was only one way to find out.

At the thought of heading to Argyll, Claire began to feel light-headed. Lady Davison lived within walking distance of Kildare Manor. If Claire went to Argyll, she would be close to Jules.

She drew a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm. Jules would never have to know she was there. She could paint the ceiling and be away from Argyll long before Lady Davison’s ball.

Her decision made, Claire headed toward Amberly Place, Lady Davison’s Edinburgh home, where the woman was fortunately in residence.

Across the street, Agatha slipped from the apothecary shop. Her hand closed around the small bottle of poison the young girl had created for her. It was a pity that Agatha had had to dispose of the girl, forcing her to drink her own concoction. Agatha had to be certain the poison was not only lethal, but fast.

The time to strike was coming nearer. She had to be prepared for when the opportunity presented itself.

It would eventually arrive, and the bottle in her hand would serve her purposes well.

Three weeks later, out of need to find some connection to the woman he missed so desperately, Jules climbed the stairs to the tower room, hoping and praying that the room still smelled like her. He entered the chamber and froze at the sight before him.

Everywhere he looked, the ceiling, the walls, even the floor, had been painted to resemble a garden in springtime. She’d painted the ruins of an ancient Greek temple that was surrounded in lush ivy and a riot of flowers. Beneath the shade of a willow tree was a fountain that looked so real Jules could swear he heard the soft trickle of water.

And to the side of the fountain, resting in a bed of violets, were two figures, their bodies entwined. He moved closer, and recognition flared. His heart stopped.

She’d painted the two of them as they had been by the loch. Their bodies glistened with drops of water, their skin vibrant and alive beneath the sun’s light. The lines of their nude bodies were obscured by a sheer white cloth, yet the very covering only made what the viewer did not see more explicit. The very portrayal was as realistic as it was exotic and sensual.

His entire body burned. He groaned at the painful loss that filled him. How would he ever forget her, when she had made Kildare Manor such a part of herself? Everywhere he went, he was reminded of her, from the tower to the stable, the loch and the kitchen. There was no safe place in his own house where memories did not consume him.

He often wondered how she fared. If the girls had fully recovered from their ordeal. He wished he knew where she was, what she was doing, and if she missed him as much as he missed her. Wearily, he lay down on the small bed in the center of the chamber and looked up at the clouds she had painted on the ceiling. He tried to close his eyes, but as was usual these past three weeks, he could not sleep. He never slept anymore, not unless he had exhausted himself in the fields with his tenants, or he imbibed the family whiskey.

Quite often he lay awake as he did now, wanting her with a passion that transcended all reason. They had to stay separated. It was for her own good. Until Agatha could be found and locked away for the rest of her life, Claire would have to remain a stranger to him.

“Why are we in Argyll?” Penelope asked from the bottom of the ladder Claire stood on. She was painting the first quadrant of the ballroom ceiling in Lady Davison’s country home.

“We are on a grand adventure as far as Anna and Eloise are concerned,” Claire answered as she applied a final swoop of gray to a mass of blue-gray clouds.

“That’s not what I mean,” Penelope said, “and you know it.”

“What
do
you mean?” Claire asked with a frown as she stepped down the ladder. She needed to clean her palette and brushes, then start on the cherubim and seraphim. She was making excellent progress on the ceiling. At this rate, she and the girls could be back in Edinburgh before the end of the year.

“Why are we in Argyll, so close to Lord Kildare, without going to see him?”

Claire smiled sadly. “He’s not part of our lives any longer. But we wish him well with his.” She poured turpentine on a rag and wiped the gray off the wooden board in her hand.

“But you are still married to him,” the young woman cried.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think he misses you?” Penelope asked.

Claire shook her head and drew a stilted breath. “No. I hurt him too badly. He will never trust me again. Besides, he can’t miss something he never loved.”

“He loved you,” Penelope said, her voice choked with sorrow. She stepped toward Claire and, ignoring the palette and the odorous cloth, wrapped her in a supportive hug.

“Not enough.” Claire turned out of Penelope’s arms, grateful for once that the mention of his name did not bring an agony of pain. She’d grown numb over the last month. That numbness helped her now as she moved to her paints and refilled her palette with white and brown, and just a hint of red, yellow, and green, to create the flesh tones she needed.