The Highland Dragon's Lady (12 page)

Punch, or at least Aunt Claire’s version of it, didn’t do a damned thing to soothe the mind.

The act of drinking helped: the motion of the hand, the weight of the glass, the taste of fruit, and the need to swallow all drew attention back to what one of Reggie’s spiritualist friends would have called “the base material sensations.” Reggie
needed
base material sensations. She needed to remind herself that she was a physical being, that she was here and now, that she wasn’t eighteen. Even punch would suffice for that. All the same, she missed the parties in London like hell. She could have gotten whiskey there, though she wouldn’t have needed it.

The paradox almost made her laugh, but she caught herself. She was conspicuous enough just now without laughing at nothing. She gulped punch instead, even though it hurt her throat.

Damn country parties. Damn country society and its long memory—in London, a ten-year-old scandal wouldn’t even have raised an eyebrow. And damn her, too, for caring. Ten years had passed. She was far away from the debutante she’d been, the child who now seemed to have been desperately naive for all that her power had already told her. She shouldn’t have cared if people stared or whispered.

Reggie certainly shouldn’t care now that Jack had married.

And she didn’t, or not in the way he had clearly been hoping she would. When he’d introduced his wife, Reggie had felt no pang of jealousy, no longing for the life she’d left behind ten years ago with a hard slap and a stream of half-hysterical accusations. Margaret Kimpton was pretty and pleasant, well-spoken, probably intelligent, and quite kind to those who knew her.

When she’d said hello to Reggie, she’d tried vainly to conceal pity as much as she had anger.

And why not? Reggie could guess what Jack had told his wife over the course of their courtship and marriage. Either Miss Talbot-Jones had been a heartless, spoiled city creature whose need for dramatics had led her to try and ruin his good name, or she’d been a foolish child, ready to believe any likely rumor and take it too seriously—and perhaps mentally unsound into the bargain. If Mrs. Kimpton had been charitable enough to consider the second possibility, it was more than many women in her position would have done.

Jack was a respectable man. In the years since he and Reggie had parted, he obviously hadn’t gambled away the family fortunes or involved himself in any public disgrace. He was probably kind to his wife and children, perhaps even loving, in his way—as he would have been to Reggie, had fate and her power played a different hand.

To the world as it was, Jack Kimpton was a good sort, and nothing Reggie had said or could say now would change that. She’d known as much, and known what it meant, for a long time now. It shouldn’t have been so much of a shock to remember.

Reggie’s glass was empty. She passed it mechanically to a servant, said, “More, please,” in as casual a tone as she could manage, and considered her options.

There was no cloud of silence in the room—many people had turned back to their own affairs or had never paid attention to anything else—but there were still eyes on her and still patches of whispering about what had happened once upon a time and what might happen tonight—and do you think that
she
thought that he was going to be here, and what do you reckon his wife has to say about it, and so on. Reggie could feel the gossip clinging to her skin like spiderwebs.

Strategic retreat to the cloakroom or a balcony might give her some relief from the eyes. The chatterers would use that as more fuel—but they’d talk anyhow—but Jack would know that she’d gone and know, or think he knew, what it meant. So would Miss Heselton, and though her malice now looked pale and harmless, Reggie didn’t want to give any ground there, either.

Also, if she hid, Uncle Lewis would likely come and give her a solicitous moral lecture, at which point she might just stab him with a hairpin.

Lingering by the table wouldn’t be much better. Reggie took her glass, smiled at the maid, and cast her eyes around until she saw her oldest cousin. “Cynthia!” she said, descending with as bright a smile and as cheerful a voice as she could manage. “Seems an age.”

“Too long entirely. I feel like an absolute relic here,” said good old Cynthia, who had been away at school during Reggie’s disastrous summer, and who had sent Reggie a gradually less misshapen scarf every Christmas. If she knew anything about Reggie’s past, she’d never said. “You look rather divine, though. I’m quite jealous.”

“No reason to be,” said Reggie. She paid the appropriate compliments—easy to do with Cynthia, who was round and bubbly and generally delightful—and began to catch up on news about Cynthia’s young man and how Aunt Claire had taken to raising spaniels and what Uncle Lewis thought about that. The conversation steadied her, and smiling was beginning to feel almost natural. When two other women, both a little older than she was, joined in, Reggie didn’t even worry.

“I don’t suppose you remember me,” said one of them when the conversation paused. “I’m Maria Charlton—or I used to be. I’m Maria Harlow now.”

The name and the piquant face, now a trifle fuller than in the past, did call forth memories after a few seconds of thought. She’d ridden with Maria Charlton on occasion, played the piano with her at those musical evenings that had been so frequent back then, and drunk a lake or two of tea with her and other girls while the men had been out hunting.

“Oh, quite,” said Reggie. “Lovely to see you again. It’s a bit late for best wishes, isn’t it? They look to have come true regardless.”

Mrs. Harlow laughed. “Oh, yes. And you? Still Talbot-Jones?”

“Is now and ever shall be, I expect,” said Reggie, laughing herself to show that she didn’t mind.

“I’m surprised,” said Mrs. Harlow, and she sounded flatteringly sincere. “Men in London must be blind.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said her companion, who seemed vaguely familiar but who Reggie couldn’t place. “Perhaps the local lads simply ruined her for all other candidates.”

There was nothing personal about the comment. In a way, that was the worst part. She saw Mrs. Harlow hesitate and Cynthia look away, as uncertain as she was about what the other woman might mean, all three of them knowing what it
could
, and why. Reggie felt her face freeze into immobility.

Retreat suddenly seemed like a far better option.

“I hate to separate such an artistically displayed collection,” came a voice from behind her: male, light and teasing, with a faint hint of Scotland. “But I’d been wondering if Miss Talbot-Jones might do me the honor of a dance.”

Colin had looked dashed well all evening. Even in her distracted mood earlier, Reggie had noticed the sleekly angular lines of his shoulders in his jacket and the way the kilt hung from his lean hips. She’d been anxious, not blind.

Now, as he offered his hand and Reggie stepped forward to meet him, she thought he might be the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

He danced well too, of course. She’d said at their first meeting that he looked like a dancing master, and he equaled any who’d ever taught
her
. He swept her across the floor with little apparent concentration, as if he were walking down the road, and he never lost track of the beat.

“Your cousin?” he asked, glancing back toward Cynthia.

“The almost-engaged one.”

“Safe, then.”

“Any of them would be,” she said, looking up at the crisp blackness of his hair, the thin yet promising line of his mouth. “At least where you’re concerned.”

“The lady is flattering tonight.”

“The lady knows you’re not Edmund,” said Reggie, shrugging. “If you haven’t learned how to handle respectable girls in a hundred and thirty years, there’s not much I can do to help you.”

He laughed. “Only a hundred and eighteen, really.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I was hardly thinking much about girls when I was ten or so, was I?”

“I don’t know,” said Reggie, and her face relaxed into a smile. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“I give you my word. The only interest I took in the fairer sex at the time concerned wheedling extra pastries out of Cook and putting ink down my sister’s back.”

“I don’t know how you made it
past
ten, in that case.”

“Neither do most of my family,” said Colin. His fingers moved against her spine, an absent caress that Reggie could feel even through the layers of corset and clothing. Was his hand warmer than a normal man’s would have been, or was she overly aware of his touch?

No reason both couldn’t be true, of course.

“Do you go to many parties like this?” she asked, knowing that she sounded breathless and that her face was flushed. Nobody with sense would believe it was exertion, not on her first dance and that a rather slow waltz—but she didn’t care.

“When the mood takes me. None in the country,” said Colin. His eyes held hers, with a heat in them that she hadn’t thought silver could hold. “And none with you until now.”

“That makes a difference, does it?”

“Good company always does.”

Colin’s arms were as strong as Reggie remembered. She felt herself relaxing into the strength of that embrace, as formal as it was, found herself breathing in the pine-and-woodsmoke scent of him, and the distance between them seemed both very small and all too great.

Sensation uncurled in her lower body. Unconscious of the motion at first, she slid her tongue over suddenly dry lips and saw Colin catch his breath.

“I should have known I was entering dangerous waters,” he said.

“Ha,” Reggie said, though the husky tone of his voice sent thrills through her that were entirely inappropriate to the dance floor. “I wouldn’t think any woman would be a danger to you these days.”

“Ah, yes—you think I know how to handle respectable girls.”

But
I’m not respectable
, Reggie almost said.
Or
haven’t you
heard?

That would sound bitter. That would
be
bitter. And if he
hadn’t
heard about her already, she was hardly going to tell him.

Instead, she grinned. “I said I think you should. That’s different.”

When he didn’t mention her, Reggie wondered how much he did know, or had guessed, and whether he’d come over deliberately to rescue her.

Maybe her pride should smart at the possibility, and maybe it would later that night. Maybe she’d kick herself when she got home and bristle at Colin the next day, half angry at him for knowing too much and making her feel grateful, half angry at herself for welcoming his help.

She looked up at Colin and let the music carry them onward. For the moment, she didn’t give a damn.

While etiquette had come some distance from the days when two dances on the same night meant one was engaged to a girl, Colin knew that spending too much time with Reggie would create talk. He wouldn’t have cared, but more gossip was the last thing she needed.

So he let Edmund and his hosts take him around and introduce him to other guests. He met the cousins, safe and unsafe, and found all three of them charming. He discussed art with Edmund and a small group of aesthetically dressed young men. He took the floor with other women and claimed Reggie for three more dances, judiciously spaced.

After the second, he decided that the boundaries of etiquette were probably more of a safety rail than a prison in this case. He could have spent the evening with Reggie otherwise, watching her full red lips as she talked, feeling her body move with his in the steps of many dances, finding new excuses to stand closer and touch her casually—and then they’d have still been at a party, with dozens of people around.

Afterward, they’d have gone home to Whitehill, a house populated both by numerous guests and Reggie’s family, none of whom were blind or deaf.
He
might have dared social disapproval, but he didn’t think Reggie would be enthusiastic about being seduced under her father’s roof, and without her enthusiasm, the game wasn’t worth the candle.

As Reggie had observed, he knew how to handle respectable girls.

Colin watched her, though. He stole glances across the ballroom, and he kept his eyes on hers while they talked. By the time they went home at the end of the evening, while she’d rarely seemed precisely relaxed, she’d lost the look of a convict waiting for the sentence.

Colin saw that and smiled and took the memory to bed with him, where, despite unsated lust, he slept deeply and well. If white figures appeared at the window, he wasn’t awake to see them.

Philanthropic moods had come and gone in Colin’s life—he’d thrown himself passionately into the Chartist cause a while back, to the extremely sarcastic amusement of his father—but this was the first time since childhood that he’d felt so satisfied after helping one single mortal. Like most new emotions, it was at least amusing—although he did wonder, as he slid down into sleep, if this was how responsibility had trapped Stephen and Judith.

The possibility didn’t frighten him. He was more elusive than either of his siblings, as a number of people had learned to their distress over the years; Reggie didn’t really
need
anyone looking out for her; and he’d be at Whitehill only until they settled the ghosts.

Thinking of that the next morning, he came down to breakfast to find Mr. Heselton holding an opened letter and everyone looking nervous.

“Word from on high?” Colin asked, helping himself to eggs and kippers while the footman poured his tea. “‘Joy cometh in the morning,’ they say—or are they wrong in this case?”

“Not precisely,” said Mr. Heselton, with a faint but determined smile. “Or, not precisely right, but not precisely wrong, either. We’ve a rite and a man who usually performs it for this part of the country, on those rare occasions when it’s been needed before, but he’s come down with the influenza.”

“Dashed bad luck,” said Edmund, and he glanced around. “You don’t think—”

“I doubt a ghost in Whitehill has power over illness in Kent,” said Mr. Heselton. “Although—but it doesn’t matter. The point is that nobody expects him to be up to an exorcism for a fortnight, if that.”

“A fortnight?” Mrs. Talbot-Jones set down her fork, closed her eyes, and then rallied. Colin could see the lists assembling themselves in her mind: adding to the grocer’s bill, taking on an extra girl from the village, and so on. “Well, I’m sure you’re all welcome to stay.”

Mr. Heselton shook his head. “You’re very kind,” he said, “but waiting a fortnight more could put us all in danger. That’s why I’ve been sent a copy of the rite. I’ll perform it myself. This evening, if it wouldn’t inconvenience the rest of you.”

He spoke quietly and simply, without drama, but the whole room stood still. Colin saw Miss Browne turn toward Mr. Heselton, but she didn’t say anything. She just met his eyes, openmouthed. Miss Heselton also stared at her brother.

Without thinking, Colin glanced over to Reggie and found her looking back at him, her brown eyes asking silent questions with no real expectation of answers. He’d told her already that he had little experience with ghosts, and nobody would have thought he’d had much to do with the Church of England. She was mortal and her power limited. Neither of them could speak to this matter.

“Wouldn’t be any trouble at all,” said Mr. Talbot-Jones, breaking the silence. “Much obliged to all of you for your assistance. Just let us know what we can do to help, will you?”

“Gladly,” said Mr. Heselton.

* * *

If there had been an undercurrent of nervousness among Whitehill’s owners and guests before Mrs. Osbourne had tried to contact the spirit, there was a positive riptide when everyone gathered for the exorcism. Standing side by side near the center of the room, Mr. and Mrs. Talbot-Jones looked completely expressionless, as sure a sign as any, with people of their age and class, that they had just about reached their breaking point inwardly.

Edmund paced. Miss Browne nibbled at her fingernails. Miss Heselton had at least temporarily abandoned her pursuit of Edmund and stood near her brother, hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white. Reggie, at her mother’s side, had some of the same masklike quality about her face that Mrs. Talbot-Jones had, but the color was high in her cheeks and her eyes were very bright. Upstairs, Mrs. Osbourne was doubtless wearing her own nerves thin.

Even Colin, lounging against one wall in his best casual manner, couldn’t deny a certain agitation. He was eager to have the whole episode over and done with, and to be sitting elsewhere with a drink.

He smiled at Reggie instead, and saw her lift her eyebrows in return. “Quite the lark, isn’t it?” she asked, keeping her voice too low for Heselton, in the middle of his preparations, to hear. “I expect we’ll set quite a trend for parties this autumn, assuming any of us survive.”

“We’ll all come out the other side intact,” said Colin, and he immediately wondered if he’d jinxed the whole endeavor.

He wanted to dismiss that thought as idiotic and superstitious. On the other hand, he was a dragon, trained in magic, and he was standing here about to try and exorcise a ghost. He couldn’t really afford to be secure in his judgments about idiocy or superstition. Surreptitiously, he tapped the wooden surface of the table next to him—and saw Reggie’s smile flicker forth, amused and understanding.

“I, ah”—Mr. Heselton cleared his throat—“I believe I’m ready to begin.”

He stood near the hearth, clerical robes a dark cloud around him. A censer in one hand sent up smoke that smelled of sage and roses. Surrounded by all the panoply of a modern drawing room and wearing an expression whose very determination spoke of his uncertainty, he should have been a ludicrous figure, or at least terribly out of place. But a sunbeam from the cloudless afternoon sky bathed him in light, his head was high, and in a way, his very uncertainty spoke of his determination.

Colin, to whom reverence toward most things had been foreign for some time and to whom awe for anything mortal had been alien for much longer, felt both emotions brush his mind as lightly as the sun itself but just as present. Mortal and unsure Heselton might be, but what he served was neither.

“If you follow me when I leave the room,” Mr. Heselton said, “I think it will help. The more vessels the Lord has to work through, the better. But I would understand if you didn’t want to take the risk.”

Drawing a breath, the vicar turned his gaze heavenward and began to pray.

The words he used were English, not Latin, Arabic, or Enochian, but Colin recognized the same sort of rhythm in them that he’d heard in spells: the sounds of invoking and imploring, of repeating a message in order to get it through to a being or beings without mortal ears or consciousness.

Still praying, swinging the censer in rhythm with his words, Heselton paced the room—and as he moved, Colin could feel immaterial powers turning their attention on the space his steps described. One of those powers was the one Heselton invoked, and Colin would not presume to name It.

The other…had been human once.

As Heselton neared the door, the temperature in the room plummeted. Colin felt hostile eyes staring at him from every inch of the wall. He felt a power gathering itself, ready to strike.

He stepped forward to follow Heselton. Reggie walked forward as well, her pale blue dress rippling around her. She might have been a temple maiden from centuries past, the inspiration for some Roman statue of courage.

They fell into step behind Heselton and passed through the doorway together.