Highlander Undone (2 page)

West Sussex County, 1887

R
ed satin bed hangings.

They gleamed like a thick cherry cordial in the morning light. Jack reached out from his seat beside the bed and fingered the luxurious fabric. It slipped over his skin like heated oil.

The drapery reminded him of the rich tapestry-lined walls of a sultan’s palace he’d once visited—a concubine’s room redolent with the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms. For his first few weeks at the dowager’s cottage at Gate Hall, he’d believed that was where he was. It had been a pleasant madness, those delirium-induced dreams, certain exotic memories fanned to life by these sumptuous surroundings.

And heavy doses of morphine.

His slowly returning faculties had taught him a less agreeable reality. There wouldn’t be any dusky, sloe-eyed beauty appearing at the foot of his bed. Instead, there would be a wooden-faced, middle-aged butler with an improbable penchant for scented hair pomade: the ubiquitous Wheatcroft, Jack’s factotum-cum-nursemaid-cum-valet. Aside from the small tweenie—Wheatcroft’s niece—who arrived with Jack’s food and took care of cleaning the room, he saw no one.

He didn’t need to. Wheatcroft, with his upper class intonations and his unflappable demeanor, was the quintessential family retainer. His presence alone had made the obvious inescapable: somehow Jack had been transported from the Sudan to England without one clear memory of the entire trip.

It had been five months since the Dervish’s shrapnel had exploded into his left shoulder; four months, Wheatcroft had informed him, since he’d arrived here. He released the satin drapery. His legs were stiff from inactivity; his eyes were bloodshot from reading—the only occupation open to him in this weak condition; and the lace-edged bedsheets Wheatcroft had so carefully tucked about him were twined around his legs. The fine sheen of sweat he always seemed to wear made the linen cling to his skin.

Irritably, he pushed himself upright. In response, a drill of pure agony speared his shoulder, reminding him with savage acuity that he wasn’t yet healed. Stifling a gasp, he stared blindly out the bedroom window, trying to control the pain.

The soft, green-filtered light of the West Sussex countryside touched his face through the open window. Slowly, the pain ebbed and he relaxed. Amazing how a simple thing like daylight could be so dissimilar in different parts of the world. This mild illumination was nothing like the mind-dazzling brilliance of the sun reflected off bleached African sand . . . white sand.

White sand. A hot, pale sky. A blood-spattered tunic, words spoken in Hindi, damning words
. . .

Jack closed his eyes. Frustration, waiting impatiently in the background, bloomed anew. How much longer before he was well enough to act? Before he could begin his search for the truth about the suspected traitor who’d forfeited his men’s lives for profit?

He opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the desk situated on the other side of the bed. Neat stacks of correspondence sat atop the mahogany surface, each one answering queries that, with Wheatcroft’s aid, he’d sent out to various bureaucrats, functionaries, department heads, and fellow officers over the last two months. Collectively the answers had revealed a pattern of direct commands subverted and orders delayed and unaccountably misdirected that had resulted in the North African slavers eluding capture.

There was no other conclusion to be made other than the Sikh had been right: there was a traitor amongst the Black Dragoons officers. But who? What was the proof he’d seen? And did it still exist?

He stared at the damning missives. He’d learned everything he could through correspondence. He would have to investigate it himself from here on out.

But how? Any hint that a captain of the Highlanders was asking questions about the Royal Dragoon officers posted to the Sudan would send his unknown enemy to ground. Frustration tightened Jack’s jaw. There must be some other way and he would find it. He owed a debt to the men who had died as a result of this bastard’s greed and he would pay it or die trying.

The doors leading to the terrace beneath his third-story window squeaked open, and the unintelligible murmur of polite voices drifted up to him from below, drawing Jack’s attention. They were the voices of two artists, Theodore Phyfe and Gerald Norton; and Phyfe’s widowed sister, Adelaide Hoodless. Jack’s uncle’s wife—a lady Jack had yet to meet, as she was not in residence—had invited them to make use of the dowager house terrace to paint the landscape. Sometimes the two men came alone; often it was the brother and sister, and occasionally, as today, all three.

Jack cursed, caught anew in a moral dilemma. It was too late to shut the windows without revealing himself and yet he did not like being in the role of unwilling audience. He did not want them to see him. If they did, they would inevitably ask Wheatcroft about him and, in being told about his convalescence, realize that he’d been here for weeks and therefore, by virtue of his bedridden state, an inadvertent eavesdropper on their conversations. It would make them all—especially her—unendurably self-conscious.

Some of the siblings’ conversations had been intensely private, not meant for a stranger’s ear. When he’d gained enough strength and had heard them before they appeared on the terrace, he had, of course, shut the windows to provide them privacy. Nonetheless, in those weeks before he had been able to rise from the bed, when they’d appeared suddenly and without Wheatcroft’s prior knowledge, he’d heard . . . much.

“Ah! Sublime! How can one single vista be more lovely with each passing day?” a reedy, affected male voice enthused. Gerald Norton.

“Lady Merritt did claim the dowager house’s back terrace held the best view in all of West Sussex and I must admit, she spoke true.” It was the deeper, languid voice of Theodore Phyfe.

“To be sure, but is it worth so much of your time?” Jack’s attention sharpened. The soft, deep contralto tones were hers. Addie’s. “You’ve been painting the same scene in a dozen incarnations over a half dozen weeks.”

“Is every light the same in every hour? Every season? No. Shame on you, Addie Phyfe. And you, the daughter of a renowned artist.”

“It is Addie
Hoodless
, Ted.”

“More the shame,” her brother drawled.

“Wishing does not make a fact of a thing.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “And I know our father as well as you and he
never
painted the same scene twice.”

“True. He had a capricious muse. It made him restless.”

“Or quickly bored.”

“Perhaps . . . unfixed.”

“Like a shooting star?” she suggested.

“Brilliant and ephemeral,” he tacitly agreed.

“But you are made of steadier stuff.”

“Just so.”

She laughed at this, a rare sound that caught at Jack’s heart. He had learned much about Addie, his unsuspected presence making him privy to things she would have only said to a brother.

But it had been her voice that had first called him back from blood-splattered sands in drug-induced nightmares. When he’d regained consciousness, her voice had given him something to focus on besides his unsound body, a body that stubbornly refused to heal and strengthen, a body that blazed with internal fire for days on end. And later, after he’d begun the slow, fitful journey toward recovery, her voice had given him respite from the knowledge that somewhere there might be an officer who had grown as bloated as a leech on the deaths of soldiers. His soldiers.

He’d never known a woman as intimately as he knew Addie.

She liked Brahms and felt guilty for finding Wagner boring. She indulged a sweet tooth and disliked liqueurs. She preferred seascapes to landscapes and brambleberries to strawberries.

But anyone in her immediate circle might know the same. Jack’s knowledge went far deeper.

He knew that she turned her face to the sun like an apostate awaiting a benediction, for her brother was always telling her to mind her complexion. She was constantly asking her companions if they’d seen the flash of a certain bird in the shrubbery and thus he knew her gaze was often fixed beyond her companions. She was spontaneous in her appreciation of any number of subjects, from politics to art, from the ladybug that she lured to her fingertip to Burton’s search for the source of the Nile.

And he knew that she’d married a man who’d beaten her and when her brother intervened, her husband had run him down with his carriage, shattering his leg.

“I shouldn’t be twitting Addie if I were you, Ted,” Norton said. “She might refuse to act as your hostess this Season, y’know, and then where’d you be without a proper lady to chaperone all the little debs who’ll be flocking to your studio to have their portraits painted?”

“Hardly flocks, old fellow. I already have accepted as many commissions as I can possibly honor and only a very few are debutantes.”

“And pray whom are these willing prisoners to your art?” a new, female voice demanded in querying tones.

“My dear lady!” Norton exclaimed. “We did not know you were in residence. Why didn’t Wheatcroft inform us when we arrived?”

“Because he did not know to expect me,” his uncle’s wife, Lady Harmonia Merritt née Gate, replied. “I have only just arrived this moment back in England and, being told that my dear friends were down here at the cottage, came at once.”

“What a delightful surprise,” Addie said, and Jack could hear the smile in her voice.

“Addie, my dear, how pleased I am to see you are looking so much improved in health since the last time I saw you.” Her voice lowered. “You . . . no longer pine?”

She could not mean that Addie pined for Hoodless? But then Lady Merritt, unless she was far more intimate with Addie than anything he’d heard suggested, would not know. Just as he was not meant to know.

One of the men made a rough sound, as though in protest. Ted, no doubt. Addie answered quickly before he could speak. “I am well, thank you.”

“And you, Ted, what is this about having commissions? You had best not think to bury yourself in the studio. As your patroness this Season, I have already planned a number of gatherings and fêtes at which I shall introduce you to those people you must know, and by whom you must be known, in order to achieve artistic prominence.”

“I am, as always, humbled by your generosity and will be honored to oblige.”

This gracious acceptance of what, to Jack’s mind, was nothing less than a direct order did little to placate the lady. “And do you think you should have accepted so many commissions without conferring with me? I must say I am worried. I should hate to see you waste your time and talent on painting some mushroom’s self-satisfied visage, to have it displayed above his dining table wall where only his shopkeeper friends will admire it.”

It appeared his uncle’s wife was a snob.

“Not at all. I have been commissioned to do a series of portraits of the officers who served so nobly in the relief effort of Khartoum. The Black Dragoons.”

And with Ted’s words an idea bloomed in Jack’s imagination.

I
feel obliged to say it once more: I have reservations about this. Distinct reservations.” The trio was still on the terrace apprising Lady Merritt of their plans for the Season while Jack made his own plans.

“Pray, do not needlessly concern yourself, dear lady,” Gerald Norton said soothingly. “We shall all, my poor self included, make every effort to see that dear Addie’s reputation remains as clean and pure and spotless as mortal man can make it.”

“Are you sure you haven’t confused my reputation with an advertisement for nappy detergent, Gerald?” Addie asked.

Jack smiled. Lady Merritt made a startled, and not altogether pleased, sound. He heard the scrape of wrought-iron chair legs against stone and Addie murmured “thank you.”

“Forgive me.” Addie’s voice was officially contrite. “But you all concern yourselves far too much with my reputation. I am not some green debutante. I am a widow.”

This brokered a disdainful
harrumph
from Lady Merritt. “And that is precisely why your reputation needs guarding, Addie,” she said. “The decision to come out of mourning before the full year has gone by cannot be made lightly. You must remember, not only was he your husband, he was a war hero, and war heroes must have their due.”

“Believe me, Lady Merritt, I have already amply paid any dues Society would extract.”

“Oh, my dear! Of course you have! But people might talk.”

“Let them talk.” Ted spoke, his tone languid and smooth, but an underlying steel set it apart from Norton’s more affected intonations.

“Ah, the voice of an affectionate brother. Or was that an opportunistic brother?” Addie cut in, sounding equal parts amused and relieved.

“I am wounded, Addie. Heartsick, in fact.”

“As if you had a heart,” scoffed Addie. “If I had promised my efforts to Gerald, I’m sure Ted would be agreeing with you, Lady Merritt. Now, don’t worry about me, please. Ted, for all his failings, likes to think of himself as a doting brother.

“And if he is to become society’s premier portraitist, he will need someone to lend him a respectable cachet. As the only one in my reprehensible family who aspires to respectability, the task falls to me.”

Jack could imagine her smiling, indulging the impish streak he supposed others would find hard to warrant she owned, as she hid it so well. Like now, as she set about so innocently, and consciously, stirring things up. For the thousandth time, he wondered what Addie looked like. He’d only had a glimpse of her from above, a peek of dark hair and the sort of figure that pervaded a man’s lustier dreams.

“. . . and I shall make a perfectly irreproachable doyen. When
society madams trot their daughters over to Teddy’s studio for a sitting,
I shall teeter on the edge of a straight-backed chair and glower. The
mamas will love it! They’ll regard me as a dragon of morality, stand
ing
twixt their beloved pink-cheeked daughters and the dissolute—though immensely talented—Theodore Graham Phyfe.”

“Well, thank you for the ‘immensely talented,’ anyway,” Addie’s brother drawled. “But really, Addie, my tastes run to something a bit more—”

“Teddy!” Gerald Norton broke in, openly scandalized. “How ever shall we convince Lady Merritt of our good intentions when you can’t even be trusted to behave yourself in her home?”

“Oh, Gerald, he only says those things because he thinks it lends him a rakish air. Quite calculated about it, too.”

“You know me too well. However shall I contrive to be mysterious?”

“Enough. Enough,” said Lady Merritt sharply, the conversation having
gotten away from her. “I can quite see that you’ve decided to set Addie up as your hostess with or without my blessings.”

“As my sponsor—and my dear friend—I shall of course give the utmost attention to your concerns,” Ted said, “but Addie’s mourning is soon over anywise. What possible difference could a few weeks more or less mean?”

“I can see that I am outnumbered. Besides, I can hardly dictate Addie’s life to her.”

Not that you haven’t already taken a damned good shot at it,
thought Jack.

“You will do whatever you wish to. It is in your artistic nature not to be tied by the bonds of a common code. We will discuss it no further,” Lady Merritt pronounced dramatically. “Now then, I have arranged to take tea in the portrait gallery.

“Ted, you may take Gerald up to Gate Hall and browse the gallery. Addie and I will be along directly. I’ve added a new Whistler to my collection and”—chairs squeaked and heels clicked across the terrace in unseemly haste.

“You can release my hand now, Lady Merritt,” Jack heard Addie say, her tone gently amused. “I promise I won’t bolt. Why did you send those two scuttling away?”

Lady Merritt mumbled something.

“Please.” Addie’s voice warmed with honest affection. “We have known each other far too long for you to ever be ‘too familiar.’ My family’s land has marched along Gate Hall property for over a hundred years.”

“I am not really worried about how society might view your attenuated mourning, m’dear.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I just hate to see you immerse yourself so thoroughly in your brother’s circle.”

Addie must have raised a questioning brow, or given some other indication of surprise, for Lady Merritt hastened on. “Not that they aren’t all perfectly charming, delightful people. You know I have always been an ardent patron of the arts. Indeed, in encouraging my son Evan’s friendships with young artists, I have . . .” Lady Merritt’s voice dropped to something resembling a growl, “. . . weathered considerable marital discord.”

“So you have confided in me,” Addie said shyly. “That is why I am finding it so surprising that you would object to Ted’s friends.”

“Only on your behalf, dear.”

“My behalf?”

“It’s different for you, Addie. Evan is a boy. He plans to pursue a future in aesthetic endeavors . . . if his father ever returns from America with him.” The flint returned to her voice. “But you are still a young woman with a future to consider.

“You should think of remarrying and I doubt whether you will find a likely candidate amongst the fribbles, would-bes, and panderers that dog the careers of truly inspired artists like your brother.”

“I like fribbles.” She was trying for valiant humor and failing.

“Oh, Addie.” Lady Merritt sighed, misreading her intention. “How can one believe that, after having known your dear, departed husband? It is hard to imagine a more masculine, dynamic being than Lieutenant Charles Hoodless.”

Long minutes passed and Addie didn’t reply. Jack imagined her, head bowed, lost in a past she would not share, unable to respond to the woman’s monumental misconception of her husband, her marriage.

“I should think you might like to reestablish ties with your husband’s old friends,” Lady Merritt finally said in a soft voice. “These artists? Very nice, very gentle. But such a drastic contrast to Charles! I fear you seek their company because you have decided never to wed again. And you know that if you never leave the artistic community you will never have to risk your heart again.”

“You are very perceptive,” Addie said in a closed, strained voice.

“You must be brave, Addie. You must carry on. You are still young. There is much of life ahead of you and I would hate to think of you living it alone.”

Addie did not respond.

“Perhaps amongst Charles’s fellow officers you might find a sympathetic suitor, someone as virile and forceful and handsome as your Charles.”

“Please . . .” Addie’s voice was no more than a whisper, raw with emotion.

“I know, m’dear. I know. But he died a hero’s death. And now, in honor of his memory, you must go on.” Lady Merritt clucked consolingly.

Damned fool woman!

“Please,” Lady Merritt continued. “Allow me to arrange a small dinner this Season. Your mourning will officially be over then and an informal party of twenty or thirty will not be unseemly. I will invite some of the local army chaps,
Lieutenant
Wilkins or Lance Corporal Hartopp. And wasn’t Major Paul Sherville a particular friend of Charles’s?”

“Yes,” Addie broke in roughly. “Yes. Please. Lady Merritt. Do not.”

“Do not what?”

“I have no desire to meet again my husband’s friends. Ever. It is . . . too painful. The memories they would awake too unendurable. I knew those men. They dined at my table and they were . . . too much like Charles. It would be excruciating.”

“But surely—”

“I want nothing to do with Her Majesty’s officers. Ever.” Addie’s tone steadied and grew ardent. “Excuse my bluntness, but you must understand, no one will ever take Charles’s place. I will not allow it.”

Jack became aware of his own labored breathing, an odd constriction in his throat.

“My dear!”

“I’m sorry, Lady Merritt. I . . . I have forgotten I am bespoke elsewhere within the hour. Please, we . . . I must leave.”

“Of course. I understand,” Lady Merritt said, her voice rife with sympathy. “I do.”

So did Jack. Addie had painted all soldiers with the same brush as her husband, assuming that his brutality was endemic to a soldier’s nature.

He would have to abandon the nascent plan he’d formed. There was no way Addie Hoodless would accept Captain Jack Cameron into her brother’s studio or help him uncover the bastard responsible for the deaths of so many good men. His jaw tightened with frustration. He couldn’t abandon the plan. It was the only one he had and the debt he owed those dead soldiers would not be gainsaid.

But how could he convince Addie? She loathed soldiers and a soldier was all Jack had ever been . . .

His eyes narrowed with inspiration.

Until now.