The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae (38 page)

He couldn't help himself. “When are you planning to hand over the goblet?”

Halting, she arched her brows, but didn't meet his eyes. “Soon.” She paused as if calculating, then said, “It shouldn't take much longer—a day or two at most.” Her eyes found his. “I know you still have time.”

“We don't have that many days left—I still have to get it down to London.” Even as he said the words, he knew he was playing into her hands—playing her game rather than his. Angelica had seen the truth very clearly; Mirabelle's scheme was at least equally driven by her wish to be avenged on him.

“Nevertheless, you'll have to wait.” Her expression grew coy, almost girlish. “Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. We'll see.”

With a swish of her skirts, she turned to the door. This time, he didn't stop her.

She stopped of her own accord. Poised in the open doorway, she looked back at him. “Meanwhile, you might dwell on the fact that if you'd done as I urged you all those years ago, you wouldn't be facing ruin now.”

If he'd done as she'd asked and acquiesced to his father's murder.

His expression locked, his face like stone, he made no reply, just waited until she'd left, then he slowly crossed the room and quietly shut the door.

“I
'm increasingly wondering if she intends to hand back the goblet at all. Once she does, she'll have no Damocles's sword to hold over me, no lever or power to make me do her bidding—and she's so enjoying that. Admittedly there's no benefit to her in holding onto the goblet, but . . .”

“But you fear she's vindictive enough to do it just for spite.” Lying cushioned amid the pillows on Dominic's bed, Angelica watched him, heart-stoppingly naked, cross the room toward her. Moonlight shone through the window overlooking the forests, limning his long limbs and the upper edge of his broad shoulders.

“Exactly.” He climbed into the bed beside her. “I can see her happily letting the clan collapse.” He slumped on his back; crossing his arms behind his head, he stared upward.

She wished she could dismiss his fears. Unfortunately, she shared them. Their plan was straightforward, but what if it didn't work?

Two seconds of thought convinced her that that was an outcome she didn't want to think about, or even entertain regardless of how matters at the moment looked. “We can't let her throw us off. We will succeed. Come hell or high water, we will get that goblet back and get it to the bankers in time.”

He glanced at her, but, like her, seemed to draw ineluctable comfort from the belligerently stubborn statement.

Rustling about, she turned to him. “And in the spirit of focusing on the better times to come, I have something to confess.”

He studied her face, then arched his brows. “Confess away.”

She smiled. “I had to tell the boys about us—that we're going to shortly marry, and that I'm helping you with something, and until that's finished with, it would be best if they could avoid us both while we're inside the keep, except for their rooms.”

“They didn't say anything about speaking with you when I saw them a few hours ago.”

“Possibly because it was here that we spoke.”

“Here. This room?”

She nodded. “Which was why it was necessary to promise them that they could attend our wedding.”

“You promised them that?” When she nodded, his lips slowly curved, then he gave in and grinned. “I know they look sweet and innocent to you, but do you have any notion of just how inventive those two can be when it comes to getting into scrapes?”

“Of course. I have nephews, and Gavin and Bryce can't be worse than they are. Regardless, I assure you, we—the females of the family—have tried-and-true ways of ensuring weddings go off without a hitch, even with the involvement of multiple page boys.”

“Page boys. Have you told them that?”

“Not yet. I'm saving it for later.” She smiled into his eyes, felt her own happiness well from knowing she'd eased his cares for just a little while. “I have a proposition for you.”

He arched his brows, inviting her to state it.

Spreading her hand on his chest, she held his gaze, softly said, “I suggest we concentrate on the here and now, on the pleasures and the joys of this night, these next hours, the coming moments. And that we leave tomorrow's cares for tomorrow.”

He studied her eyes, then he unlocked his arms and reached for her. “All right.”

His hands closed about her waist. Before she could think, he rolled, and then she lay on her back beneath him, the dimness of the four-poster closing around them as he settled over her.

The warmth of their bodies merged; her nerves stretched with awareness and anticipation.

He looked down at her and smiled, his eyes slowly tracking up to her eyes. He looked into them, then murmured, “As you wish. Tonight is for tonight, and these hours are for you and me.”

He bent his head and she tipped hers up, let him kiss her while she kissed him back. Then let him whirl her into the primal dance, banishing all thoughts but those that led them ever onward, down the road to paradise.

Chapter Nineteen

T
hey were late down for breakfast; other than Brenda, still in her role of guard, there were only a few stragglers at the lower tables.

As Mirabelle rarely emerged from her rooms until much later, Angelica was happily addressing a bowl of porridge liberally laced with honey when Dominic, similarly engaged in his chair alongside hers, suddenly raised his head, then looked at her. “She's coming.”

Angelica met his eyes, blinked, then drew breath, closed her eyes, and reached for her wilting, crushed violet persona, drawing it around her like a veil, shrinking down, her head lowering, her shoulders hunching as if to ward off a blow.

A second later, Mirabelle walked into the room. She didn't immediately glance their way, but peered toward the main doors. Frowning, she turned to the high table. Spotting the news sheets Dominic had been leafing through, her expression eased and she crossed to the dais to take her usual seat.

One of the maids came hurrying up, but Mirabelle waved her off and reached for the news sheets. Wordlessly, Dominic surrendered them—the Edinburgh papers from three days before, and the London papers from a week previously; he had both delivered by rider from Inverness every day.

His heart sank as he realized what his mother was searching for.

Discarding the Edinburgh sheets, she pored over those from London, turning each over, flicking back and forth. Abruptly, she sat up and flung the papers back at him. “There's nothing there!”

He had to be sure. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that there's no mention of
her
”—viciously Mirabelle jabbed a finger in Angelica's direction—“disappearing. No mention of the scandal! How can she be socially ruined if no one knows?”

Turning his head, Dominic exchanged a brief glance with Angelica.

Before he could think of what to say, she leaned forward and, as if hugely relieved by Mirabelle's outburst, said, “Oh,
thank you
! I didn't think to look. I didn't know if they would, you see, or if they might be able to even if they'd wanted to, given the circumstances.” She smiled weakly—a smile that wobbled into a sad expression. She looked down. “It's so . . . comforting to know they cared and managed it.”

Dominic faced Mirabelle. “Obviously her family has hidden her disappearance. They will for as long as they can. You must have read enough of them to know that they could, and most likely would.” He frowned at her. “Surely you didn't expect to read about Angelica Cynster being kidnapped in a news sheet?”

The look Mirabelle bent on him stated very loudly that she had.

She glared, then, her face hardening, shot a dark glance at Angelica's bowed head. “I wanted a scandal.”

“No—you wanted her ruined. That was our bargain, and ruined she is, whether that's puffed off in the news sheets or not.”

Mirabelle's jaw firmed. Lips compressed, she glared even more furiously—first at the papers, then at him. “
I don't care!
” She drew breath, reached for a modicum of calm, then stated, “I'm going to wait until the scandal breaks.” Rising, she pointed at the news sheets. “Until I see it in black and white.”

Dominic held onto his temper. “That wasn't our bargain.”

Leaning closer, Mirabelle grated out, “Too bad!” She stepped back. “She has to be
socially
ruined. I'm going to wait.” Swinging around, she stormed out of the hall.

Angelica watched her go, then, straightening, closed a hand on Dominic's arm. “Not here.” To her senses, his spiraling temper registered as a volcano about to erupt; her temper was not far behind. She eased out a breath. “Let's go for a walk.”

T
hey were going to need something to anchor and, later, refocus them. Angelica sent Brenda to fetch the boys and the dogs, then to her surprise found herself in company with Gavin, Bryce, and the three gamboling water spaniels being ushered by a silent Dominic down into the bowels of the north tower below Mirabelle's rooms. They crept down the stone stairs, then Dominic opened a door and waved them past, into a store room. After shutting the door, he took her hand and drew her in the wake of the boys and the dogs—to another door set in the outer wall.

This door was heavy, solid oak, with massive iron bracing, big hinges, huge bolts, and a large lock. The key hung to one side. Dominic lifted it down, inserted it and turned, then shot back the bolts and heaved the door open—revealing a stone-faced tunnel leading away from the castle.

Angelica looked down the tunnel, then at him.

“The postern gate, so to speak.” The boys and dogs had already charged ahead, leaping along with careless abandon. Dominic waved her on. “The tunnel runs under the gardens and the outer wall, then beneath the surface of the loch. The floor's level and it's not that far—it comes out on the side of a hillock on the shore.”

Brows rising, she stepped out. He followed, pulling the door shut, cutting off what little light the store room had offered. She slowed. His fingers closed about her elbow and he guided her on. “You'll be able to see shortly.”

A few yards further, her eyes did indeed adjust to the low light. She could see well enough to walk without tripping.

“The other end is a grille, not a door. That's where the light comes from.”

As he'd said, the tunnel wasn't that long. The boys had known how to unlatch the grille; it stood pushed wide, and boys and dogs were galloping ahead along a narrow path.

Joining her in the weak sunshine, Dominic took her hand, settled it in his, then they walked on, following the boys' lead. “On this shore, there are no lanes, only the paths, but there are plenty of forks and offshoots. Until you get to know them, you'll be safer walking out with others.”

She looked around, turning to look back at the castle and loch to get her bearings.

“We'll soon be out of sight of the castle.” Dominic nodded to their left. “That hill and the forest will come between us and the loch.”

Hand in hand, they walked on and didn't speak of the matter consuming them both—not yet. The forests closed around them, the shade soothing, the pervasive silence broken by birdcalls, the boys' bright voices, and the burbling of a nearby brook.

Still looking about her, she asked, “Are these clan lands?”

“Up to the crest.” He glanced at the surrounding trees. “This is Coille Ruigh na Cuileige forest. The stream down there”—he tipped his head at the slope rolling down to their right—“is Allt na h Imrich. This path will take us to the head of the waterfall close by its source.”

“Do the boys speak Gaelic?”

“Yes.” He glanced at her. “Why?”

“Well, clearly, I'm going to have to learn.” She met his eyes. “You'll have to teach me—I'm generally a quick learner.”

His lips eased a fraction. He squeezed her hand lightly. Content enough with that, she looked ahead and they continued on.

The climb to the head of the waterfall demanded her attention and successfully hauled her mind from all else. When she wasn't watching her own feet, she was casting glances at the boys, toiling just ahead of her and Dominic.

He saw, murmured, “Don't worry. They're more nimble than goats.”

Eventually, they reached a ledge just below the lip of the cliff top from which the waters of the Allt na h Imrich fell in a long, graceful cascade to land on rocks far below. The ledge was more than a yard wide, safe enough even though fully half its rocky length was damp and slippery, kept wet by the spume thrown from the waters plummeting down at the ledge's far end. A large natural alcove at the back of the ledge housed a cairn with a bronze plaque, while a bench had been hewn out of the rock where the path reached the ledge, at the end opposite the waterfall.

She peered past the curtain of water. “The ledge doesn't go behind the fall, does it?”

“No. If it did, the dogs would be soaked, and so would the two terrors.”

Both boys and dogs, still reasonably dry, had clambered up a goat track to the cliff top above. Settling on the lip above the ledge, the boys sat with legs swinging and looked out, lords of all they surveyed.

Smiling, she walked to where a large rock, midchest height for her, formed a natural barrier at the edge of the ledge a few feet from where the water thundered past.

“Careful. It's slippery there.”

Nodding, she set a hand on the damp rock and very carefully peered past and down.

Between roiling clouds of misty spray she caught glimpses of jagged black rocks a long, long way down. “Definitely not the place to slip.”

Stepping back from the edge, she turned and walked to the cairn, almost as big as the rock; the bronze plaque was set into the front face of the rough pyramid. “What's this?”

“It's in honor of my great-grandfather. It was he who kept the clan safe through the clearances.”

With her fingers, she traced the words on the plaque, once again in Gaelic. “Say this for me.”

He did. She listened to his deep voice rolling through the syllables, to their cadence and the emotion they carried. When he fell silent, she sighed. “That's lovely.”

“Yes, it is.”

Turning, she saw him easing down to sit on the rock bench. She walked over and joined him.

For a moment they sat in silence. The view over the rolling mountains, the dips and shadows of the valleys, the ruffled green skirts of the forests, was breathtaking; they both took a moment to savor the sight, the crisp air, the peace.

Eventually Dominic leaned forward, rested his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands. “So . . . what are we going to do?” When she didn't immediately respond, he went on, “I'm at my wits' end, and close to the end of my patience. If she keeps changing her rules, we'll never—”

“No—don't say it.” When he fell silent, Angelica went on, “She hasn't actually changed her rules—she's just told us what criteria she'd expected to use to measure my social ruination. That was the one thing we didn't know, and now it's tripped us up. You told me she wouldn't understand how families like mine operate, so of course she assumed there would be a public scandal. As there won't be . . .”

Turning his head, he looked at her, studied her face, her eyes. He could almost see her manipulative wheels churning. Holding silent, he waited, wondering if even she could find a way out.

She'd been staring into space, a slight frown dragging down her brows; slowly, the frown eased, vanished, then she refocused and looked at him. Consideringly, assessingly.

His instincts pricked. “What?”

She compressed her lips, studying him—his face, his eyes—some more. Finally, she said, “You're going to have to trust me. For today, leave her to me. Let me work on her—there just might be a way.”

Sitting up, he tried to fathom her direction, but could divine nothing from her face. “How?”

“I need to make her see that expecting to harm my family through a public scandal is unrealistic—that, if anything, she's going to play into their hands . . . yes, that's right. That's how I'll couch it.” She paused, then went on, “And once I convince her of that, I need to show her a way in which she can be assured of gaining her revenge—a way that you and I can successfully deliver, a way she'll accept and so be satisfied.”

Meeting his eyes, she smiled intently. “We need to remember that that's what this has been about all along—her being
assured
of her revenge.”

He could sense her returning enthusiasm; his instincts still jibbed. “What, exactly, are you planning?”

She met his eyes, considered for a long moment, then laid one hand over his and squeezed. “Let me see if I can get her to swallow my bait, then I'll tell you my lure.”

He didn't like it, but he'd run out of options. And he couldn't
not
trust her.

He did trust her, but . . . grim-faced, he reined in his instincts and nodded. “All right.”

“T
hank you,
thank you
! I can't thank you enough for showing me the error of my ways.” Subsiding onto the straight-back chair she'd fetched and placed before Mirabelle's armchair in the sitting room, Angelica clasped her hands in her lap, fixed her eyes on Mirabelle's face, and endeavored to cling to her crushed violet persona while leavening her previous dejection with budding hope. “I hadn't realized, you see—quite silly of me, but with being so frightened, indeed, at times quite terrified of your son and his intentions toward me, well, you can see how it was that it simply slipped my mind that of course my family would conceal my disappearance.
Of course
they would—and clearly they have, and successfully, given there's no mention of my disappearance in the news sheets. That's
such
a relief!”

She'd let hope glimmer from the moment she'd been escorted to the high table for luncheon; throughout the meal, she'd pretended to be absorbed with her own thoughts, allowing her face to reflect that said thoughts had not been the same dismal, dire, fearful ones that had consumed her before.

During the meal, Dominic had eyed her with unconcealed suspicion and a touch of wariness, unwittingly playing the part she'd needed him to play to perfection. Mirabelle had come to the table in a pouting temper, had shifted to scowling when Dominic hadn't noticed, but eventually she'd seen Dominic's suspicious looks, and had followed them, and then she'd grown suspicious, too.

Immediately the meal had ended, Angelica had heightened suspicions all around by literally begging Mirabelle for an audience. Mirabelle had pretended to hesitate, but, of course, had agreed.

Leaning forward, Angelica confided, “I realize, of course, that you don't approve of your son's actions—that no matter how it appears, or what you think of me, that you're working against him.” Mirabelle frowned, but before she could interrupt, Angelica held up a hand. “Oh, I know there's more to it that I don't know—I don't understand very much, but I've heard about the goblet, and how, now that he's brought me here, you won't give it to him and so he'll be the one ruined . . . well, I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am, and how grateful and appreciative my family will be, my father and my mother especially. By ruining your son, you'll be striking a blow for them, giving them exactly the revenge and retribution they would want visited on him for kidnapping me. Why”—eyes widening, she managed an ingratiating smile—“you could be said to be acting as their champion!”