Scandal's Bride (4 page)

And, despite the intimate caresses they'd exchanged, he knew she wasn't that sort of lady. He'd breached her walls by sheer brazen recklessness, evoked by her haughty command to put her down. Right now, he'd like to lay her down, but that, he knew, was not to be.

He raised his head.

Her eyes flew wide; she looked at him as if he was a ghost.

“Lady preserve me.”

Her words were a fervent whisper; condensed by the cold, they misted the air between them. She searched his face—for what, Richard could not guess; with his customary arrogance, he raised one brow.

Lips, soft and rosy—much rosier now than before—firmed. “By the Lady's veil! This is
madness!”

She shook her head and pushed against his chest; bemused, Richard set her down carefully, then released her. Frowning absentmindedly, she stepped around and past him, then whirled to face him. “Who
are
you?”

“Richard Cynster.” He sketched her an elegant bow. Straightening, he trapped her gaze. “Entirely at your service.”

Her eyes snapped. “Do you make a habit of accosting innocent women in graveyards?”

“Only when they walk into my arms.”

“I
requested
you to put me down.”

“You
ordered
me to put you down—and I did. Eventually.”

“Yes. But . . .” Her tirade—he was sure it would have been a tirade—died on her lips. She blinked at him. “You're
English!”

An accusation rather than an observation. Richard arched a brow. “Cynsters are.”

Eyes narrowing, she studied his face. “Of Norman descent?”

He smiled, proudly arrogant. “We came over with the Conqueror.” His smile deepening, he let his gaze sweep her. “We still like to dabble, of course.” Looking up, he trapped her gaze. “To keep our hand in with the occasional conquest.”

Even in the weak light, he saw her glare, saw the sparks that flared in her eyes.

“I'll have you know this is all a
very big mistake!”

With that, she whirled away. Snow crunched, louder than before, as, in a flurry of skirts and cloak, she stalked off. Brows rising, Richard watched her storm through the lychgate, saw the quick, frowning glance she threw him from the shadows beneath. Then, with a toss of her head, chin high, she marched up the road.

Toward the inn.

The ends of Richard's lips lifted. His brows rose another, more considering, notch. Mistake?

He watched until she disappeared from sight, then stirred, straightened his shoulders, and, lips curving in a wolfish smile, strolled unhurriedly in her wake.

R
ichard rose early the next morning. He shaved and dressed, conscious of a familiar excitement—the excitement of the hunt. Creasing the last fold of his cravat, he reached for his diamond pin—a rough shout reached his ears. He stilled—and heard, muffled by the windows tight shut against the winter chill, the unmistakable clack of hooves on cobbles.

Three swift strides had him at the window, looking down through the frosted pane. A heavy travelling carriage stood before the inn door, ostlers holding a pair of strong horses, breaths fogging as they stamped. Boys from the inn wrestled a trunk onto the carriage roof, the innkeeper directing them.

Then a lady emerged from the porch, directly below Richard. The innkeeper sprang to open the carriage door. His bow was respectful, which did not surprise Richard—the lady was his acquaintance of the churchyard.

“Damn!” Eyes on her long tresses, flame bright in the morning, clipped together so they rippled like a river down her back, he swore beneath his breath.

With a regal nod, the lady entered the carriage without a backward glance; she was followed by the older woman Richard had seen in the inn. Just before ascending the carriage steps, the old woman looked back—and up—straight at Richard. He resisted the urge to step back; an instant later, the woman turned and followed her companion into the carriage.

The innkeeper closed the door, the coachman clicked the reins and the carriage lumbered out of the yard. Richard swore some more—his prey was escaping. The carriage reached the end of the village street and turned, not left, toward Crieff, but right—up the road to Keltyhead.

Richard frowned. According to Jessup, his groom and coachman, the narrow, winding Keltyhead road led to McEnery House, and nowhere else.

A discreet tap fell on the door; Worboys entered. Shutting the door, he announced: “The lady after whom you were inquiring has just departed the inn, sir.”

“I know that.” Richard turned from the window; the carriage was out of sight. “Who is she?”

“A Miss Catriona Hennessy, sir. A connection of the late Mr. McEnery.” Worboys's expression turned supercilious. “The innkeep, an ignorant heathen, maintains the lady is a witch, sir.”

Richard snorted and turned back to his mirror. Witchy, yes. A witch? It hadn't been any exotic spell that had bewitched him in the night, in the crisp cold of the kirk yard. Memories of sleek, warm, feminine curves, of soft, luscious lips, of an intoxicating kiss, returned . . .

Setting his pin into his cravat, he reached for his coat. “We'll leave as soon as I've breakfasted.”

His first sight of McEnery House colored Richard's vision of Seamus McEnery and his mother's last years. Clinging to the wind-whipped side of the mountain, the two-story structure seemed hewn from the rock behind it and weathered in similar fashion, totally uninviting as a suitable habitat for humans. Live ones, anyway—the place could have qualified as a mausoleum. The prevailing impression of hard and cold was emphasized by the lack of any vestige of a garden—even the trees, which might have softened the severe lines, stopped well back from the house as if fearing to draw nearer.

Descending from his carriage, Richard could detect no sign of warmth or life, no light burning in defiance of the dull day, no rich curtains draped elegantly about the sashes. Indeed, the windows were narrow and few, presumably from necessity. It had been cold in Keltyburn, at the foot of the mountain—up here, it was freezing.

The front door opened to Worboys's peremptory knock; Richard ascended the steps, leaving Worboys and two footmen to deal with his luggage. An old butler stood waiting just inside the door.

“Richard Cynster,” Richard drawled, and handed him his cane. “Here at the behest of the late Mr. McEnery.”

The butler bowed. “The family are in the parlor, sir.”

He relieved Richard of his heavy coat, then led the way. Richard followed; the impression of a tomb intensified as they travelled down uncarpeted flagged corridors, through stone archways flanked by columns of solid granite, past door after door shut tight against the world. The chill was pervasive; Richard was contemplating asking for his coat back when the butler halted and opened a door.

Announced, Richard entered.

“Oh! I say.” A ruddy-complexioned gentleman with a shock of reddish hair struggled to his feet—he'd been engaged in a game of spillikins with a boy and a girl on the rug before the fire.

It was a scene so much like the ones Richard was accustomed to, his cool expression relaxed. “Don't let me interrupt.”

“No, no! That is . . .” Abruptly drawing breath, the man thrust out his hand. “Jamie McEnery.” Then, as if recalling the matter with some surprise, he added: “Laird of Keltyhead.”

Richard gripped the hand offered him. About three years his junior, Jamie was a good head shorter than he, stocky, with a round face and the sort of expression that could only be called open.

“Did you have a good trip up?”

“Tolerably.” Richard glanced at the others seated about the room, a surprising number all garbed in dull mourning.

“Here! Let me introduce you.”

Jamie proceeded to do so; Richard smoothly acknowledged Mary, Jamie's wife, a sweet-faced young woman too passive for his tastes, but, he suspected, quite right for Jamie, and their children, Martha and Alister, both of whom watched him through big, round eyes as if they'd never seen anyone like him before. And then there were Jamie's siblings, two whey-faced sisters with their mild husbands and very young, rather sickly looking broods, and last, Jamie's younger brother Malcolm, who appeared not only weak but peevish.

Accepting a chair, Richard had never before felt so much like a large, marauding predator unexpectedly welcomed into a roomful of scrawny chickens. But he hid his teeth and duly took tea to warm him after his journey. The weather provided instant conversation.

“Looks like more snow on the way,” Jamie remarked. “Good thing you got here before it.”

Richard murmured his assent and sipped his tea.

“It's been particularly cold up here this year,” Mary nervously informed him. “But the cities—Edinburgh and Glasgow—are somewhat warmer.”

Her sisters-in-law murmured inaudible agreement.

Malcolm stirred, a dissatisfied frown on his face. “I don't know why we can't remove there for winter like our neighbors do. There's nothing to do here.”

A tense silence ensued, then Jamie rushed into speech. “Do you shoot? There's good game to be had—Da' always insisted the coverts were kept up to scratch.”

With an easy smile, Richard picked up the conversational gauntlet and helped Jamie steer the talk away from the families' obviously straitened circumstances. A quick glance confirmed that the gentlemen's coats and boots were well worn, even patched, the ladies' gowns a far cry from the latest fashions. The younger children's clothes were clearly hand-me-downs, while the coat Malcolm hunched in was a size too big—one of Jamie's doing double duty.

The answer to Malcolm's question was transparent—Seamus's children lived under his chilly roof because they had nowhere else to go. At least, Richard mused, they had this place as a refuge, and Seamus must have left them well provided for; there was no hint of poverty about the house itself, or its servants. Or the quality of the tea.

Finishing his, he set his cup down and wondered, not for the first time, where his witch was hiding. He'd detected no trace of her, or her older shadow, even in the others' faces. He'd seen her witchy face clearly enough in the bright moonlight; the only resemblance she shared with Jamie and his siblings lay in their red hair. And, perhaps, he conceded, the freckles.

Jamie's and Malcolm's faces were a collage of freckles, their sisters' only marginally less affected. His memory of the witch's complexion was of ivory cream, unblemished except for a dusting of freckles over her pert nose. He'd have to check when next he saw her; despite his wish to hasten that event, he made no mention of her. With no idea who she was—where she stood in relation to the family—he was too wise to mention their meeting, or express any interest in others who might be present.

Languidly, he rose, causing a nervous flutter among the ladies.

Jamie immediately rose, too. “Is there anything we can get you? I mean—anything you might need?”

While struggling to strike the right note as head of the family, Jamie had an openness of which Richard approved; he smiled lazily down at him. “No, thank you. I have all I need.” Bar an elusive witch.

With an easy smile and his usual faultless grace, he excused himself and withdrew to his room to refresh himself before luncheon.

Richard did not set eyes on his witch until that evening, when she glided into the drawing room, immediately preceding the butler. As that venerable individual intoned the words “Dinner is served,” she swept the gathering with a calm and distant smile—until she came to him, standing beside Mary's chair.

Her smile died—stunned astonishment took its place.

Slowly, with deliberate intent, Richard smiled back.

For one quivering instant, her stunned silence held sway, then Jamie stepped forward. “Ah . . . Catriona, this is Mr. Cynster. He's been summoned for the reading of the will.”

Deserting his face, she fixed her gaze on Jamie's. “He has?” Her tone conveyed much more than a simple question.

Jamie shuffled and shot an apologetic glance at Richard. “Da”s first wife made him a bequest. Da' held it until now.”

Frowning, she opened her lips to quiz Jamie. Having silently prowled closer, Richard took her hand—she jumped and tried to snatch it back, but he didn't let go.

“Good evening, Miss . . .” Richard slanted a questioning glance at Jamie.

Instead, his witch answered, in tones colder than ice. “Miss Hennessy.”

Again, she surreptitiously tugged, trying to free her hand; Richard unhurriedly brought his gaze to her face, waited until she looked up, trapped her eyes with his, then smoothly raised her hand. “A pleasure,” he purred. Slowly, deliberately, he brushed her knuckles with his lips—and felt the shiver of awareness that raced through her—the shiver she couldn't hide. His smile deepened. “Miss Hennessy.”