The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (23 page)

“That’s because you brought me up, Father.”

“Everything all right?” Cameron asked casually of Ian. He was wondering how Hart had taken the news. “He’ll come around,” Ian said.

“We haven’t seen much of Hart in the last few days,” Beth said.

“Oh, no? Hiding from him, are you?”

“No, we—“ Beth broke off and went bright red. Cam looked from her to Ian, who couldn’t help grinning, and then Cam burst out laughing. Cameron’s laugh could ring to the skies. The filly jerked her head back in irritation. “What are you laughing at?” Daniel asked, frowning. “Oh, you mean you were in bed. Good on you, Ian. I’ll have a little cousin soon, will I?”

“Unmitigated brat,” Cameron growled in good humor.

“You don’t say such things to a lady.”

“But laughing at them is all right?” Daniel countered. “You see what I mean?” Cameron said to Beth. “He has a foul, impertinent mouth, and it’s all my fault. Ignore him. Have you taken her riding, Ian? Got a good horse for her?”

Beth’s face lost its color. “Oh, I don’t ride.”

All three Mackenzies stared at her. “You don’t ride?”

Daniel asked in shock.

Beth slipped her hand into Ian’s. “Not much opportunity to prance down the Rotten Row as a poor vicar’s wife. And Mrs. Barrington was beyond her riding years. I did hire a pony cart in Paris.”

Both Cameron and Daniel gave her pitying looks. “You are in luck,” Cam said. “The compensation for marrying a Mackenzie is that your brother-in-law is the best horse master in the British Isles. I’ll pick you out a horse and begin your instruction tomorrow.”

Beth squeezed Ian’s fingers tighter. “An elderly, placid nag, please. And really, I don’t need to ride. I’m happy using my own two feet.”

“Tell her, Ian.”

Beth turned to him, her eyes wide. Ian forgot all about the conversation and didn’t much care whether Beth rode like a master or stayed on the ground. He only wanted to put his arms around her, to hold her, to continue what they’d been doing before Cameron interrupted. He bent down and kissed her.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said.

“How reassuring,” Beth answered faintly.

The horse Cameron chose for her wasn’t exactly an elderly nag, but she was a gentle mare who had left her sporting days far behind. She was much larger than the sweet little pony Beth had pictured, towering above even Cameron, her feet like platters.

“She’s half draft horse,” Cameron said. “I breed them like that sometimes for jumping and stamina. She’s a sweetheart. Up you go.”

The saddle looked the size of a doily on the horse’s great back. It had one stirrup and a groove that was to hold Beth’s right leg.

“Why can’t ladies ride like men?” Beth complained as Cameron boosted her up. She overbalanced and gave a little shriek as she went off the other side—to be caught in Ian’s arms.

“With a horse between your legs?” Cameron’s goldflecked eyes went wide, and he touched his fingers to his mouth like a shocked, elderly maiden. “What kind of woman did you marry, Ian?”

“A practical one,” Beth said. She fought the skirt of her new riding habit and flailed for the stirrup. Ian’s strong hand supported her back like a rock. Cameron grabbed Beth’s ankle and pressed her foot into the stirrup. “There. Ready?”

“Oh, of course. Let’s be off to the Derby.” She reached for the reins, but Cameron wouldn’t hand them to her. “No reins today. I’ll lead.”

Beth looked at him in terror. Ian was on her other side, his bulk reassuring, but she sat at a heart-stopping height above him.

“I’ll fall off without the reins,” she protested. “Won’t I?”

“You can’t hold on by dragging at the horse’s face,” Ian explained. “You balance.”

“Something I’ve never been good at.”

“You’ll be good at it now,” Cameron said. Without further ado, Cameron led the horse off at a very slow walk. Beth immediately slid off the horse’s right side, but Ian caught her and pushed her back up into the saddle. He was smiling broadly. Laughing at his poor wife.

The stable hands and many of the mansion’s staff gravitated out to watch. They either pretended to pass by the patch of park on their way somewhere else or blatantly hung on the fence that separated park from stable yard. They weren’t above giving the new lady of the house words of advice or applauding when she managed to stay on when the mare broke into a trot.

By the end of the lesson, Beth had at least learned how to balance on the saddle and use her legs for support. The staff gave her a cheer when Ian lifted her down. Their warm encouragement was a stark contrast to the chill of the dining table that evening. Hart sat in frigid silence. The footmen who’d shouted for Beth with Scots enthusiasm now looked subdued and chastised.

Beth’s legs hurt, the muscles unused to such exercise. When she plopped into the dining room chair Ian held out for her, she jumped up again with a little cry. Ian’s strong hands closed around her. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine.” She bit her lip. “I believe Cameron needs to find me a softer horse.”

Ian grinned, then burst out laughing. His laughter was warm and velvety, so fine she paused to drink it in. Beth smiled at him and made a show of gingerly sitting down.

“You may cease laughing at me, Ian Mackenzie. It was only my first lesson.”

He leaned toward her. “You already have a very good seat, my Beth.”

“Shall I take it you are referring to how I sit on a horse?” Ian kissed her cheek and moved to his own chair, still smiling. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sat down.

“Beth likes to joke,” he said without looking at the others. Beth felt the frost of Hart’s rigid stare. Daniel’s mouth was open in surprise, and Cameron sat very still. Something had happened, and Beth wasn’t certain what. The rest of the meal was tense, though Ian didn’t notice.

He ate calmly, oblivious. Occasionally he’d look up at Beth, his smile hot, and once, when the others weren’t looking, he curled his tongue at her. Beth turned beet red and stared down at her plate.

When the footmen finally cleared the last course, Hart rose and tossed down his napkin.

“Ian, I need you,” he said, and stalked from the room.

Cameron reached for the humidor on the sideboard. Daniel joined him, neither of them acting surprised at Hart’s abrupt departure. When Ian went to them, Beth leapt from her chair and sped out of the room.

“Beth… “ she heard Ian say, and then she was down the hall and inside Hart’s private study. Hart swung around in the middle of the room.

“Ian is not your servant,” Beth burst out.

Hart pinned her with his eagle’s gaze. “What the devil?”

“You summon Ian the same way you’d summon a footman for your boots.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Mrs. Ackerley, you have been one of this family barely a week. Ian and I hammered out an understanding long before you appeared on the horizon.”

“He is your brother, not your secretary.”

“Don’t try my patience.”

“You love him. Why don’t you show him?”

Hart came to her, lips tight, and gripped her shoulders. He was abominably strong. “Mrs. Ackerley—”

“My
name
is Beth.”

The door banged open, and Ian stormed inside. He caught Hart and shoved him away from Beth. “Don’t touch her.”

Hart shook him off. “What is the matter with you?”

“Beth, get away from him.”

Beth’s heart thumped. “Ian, I’m sorry, I was just—“ Ian swung his head to her but wouldn’t look at her.

“Now!”

Beth stood for one more stunned instant, then sped out of the room. Cameron looked startled as she passed him in the hall, then he said, “Hell,” and marched to Hart’s study. The slam of the door thundered down the passage. Beth made it to the main stairs before she collapsed, lungs burning. She could barely breathe, her dratted corset too tight.

Someone thumped down next to her. “You all right, Auntie Beth? Want a drink or something?” She wanted to laugh hysterically at “Auntie Beth,” but she held herself together. “Yes, thank you, Daniel, a drink would be lovely.”

“Oy,” Daniel shouted over the banisters. “Angus. Bring a dram o’ whiskey.”

The burly footman who’d been passing through the hall turned on his heel and went back into the dining room. “Are they always like this?” Beth asked, breathing carefully. “At each other’s throats? Oh, aye. Always shouting about something. You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I?”

“You’ll have to, won’t you? But they’ve been unhappy.” Beth blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “What about you? Are you unhappy?”

Daniel shrugged his lanky shoulders. “You mean because my mum tried to murder me and my dad and then offed herself? I never knew her, and Dad’s done his best.” His matter-of-fact acceptance of his mother’s violence twisted Beth’s heart. It had been the same in the East End, ten-year-old girls whose prostitute mothers had been beaten by their men shrugged shoulders and said tightly, “She were a whore. What’d she expect?”

Unaware of her pity, Daniel took the cut-crystal glass that Angus brought and thrust it into her hand. Beth sipped, the smooth taste of whiskey curling pleasantly on her tongue.
Ladies don’t drink spirits,
she heard Mrs. Barrington say. This despite the secret brandy bottle stashed in Mrs. Barrington’s bedside table.

“Tell me something, Daniel,” Beth said tiredly. “In the dining room, when Ian laughed at me, you all stared like the ceiling had come down. Why?”

Daniel wrinkled his forehead. “Why? ‘Twas because Ian laughed. I don’t think any of us have ever heard Uncle Ian laugh out loud before. At least not since he got sprung from the asylum.”

Beth progressed on her riding lessons until, by the end of the week, she could ride unassisted as long as Cameron or Ian rode alongside her. She learned to use her legs to guide the horse and not flail or grab the reins to keep her balance. The soreness began to slacken as her muscles became accustomed to the exercise. By the beginning of her second week of lessons, she could climb into bed with only a soft moan of pain. Ian proved amazingly capable at massaging the stiffness out of her. Beth became fond of the old horse she rode. The mare had a mile-long pedigree name, but her nickname among the stable lads was Emmie. While Beth and Emmie plodded across the vast lands of Kilmorgan, Ian and Cameron raced or put their horses over fences. Ian was an excellent rider, but Cameron seemed to become part of his horse. When he wasn’t giving Beth lessons, he worked at training the filly he’d brought, letting her run on a long line he held in competent hands.

“It’s his gift,” Ian said to Beth as they watched him one morning. “He can do anything with horses. They love him.” With people Cameron was harsh and often rude, and his language colored the air. At first he apologized to Beth, but after a while he forgot to. Beth remembered what Isabella had told her, that the Mackenzies had lived as bachelors for so long, they didn’t think to soften their manners around ladies. Beth, used to East End toughs, decided she could bear it. As she’d told Inspector Fellows, she was not a wilting weed.

She learned to treasure Ian’s conversations with her, like this one about Cameron, because she never saw him much outside of bed. Over the next two weeks, he closeted himself with Hart, or the two went riding alone, and neither would say where. Cameron kept on with Beth’s lessons without indicating that anything was unusual. Beth tried to ask Ian once what he and Hart were doing, and Ian answered laconically, “Business,” before looking off into the distance. It maddened her to not understand, but she hated to poke and pry. Hart had been right; she barely knew Ian, and perhaps this was what they always did.

I can’t expect them to change their entire lives for me, she
chided herself. Another part of her would respond,
But he’s my husband…

Things went on like this until one afternoon when Cameron took her riding beyond the park up into the hills.

It was a beautiful day, with a fine summer breeze dancing through the trees. Patches of snow lingered on the highest peaks of the mountains, the sun never quite warming it enough to melt it.

“There’s a folly in the woods out here,” Cameron said, riding beside her. His own horse was a glossy black stallion. The stable lads were afraid of the beast, but he obeyed Cam without fuss. “My father built it for my mother. There weren’t enough ruined castles in the Highlands for him, so he decided to build a fake one.”

The brothers never spoke much about their mother, or their father either, for that matter. The portrait of their much-bearded father glared at her every day from the top of the second-floor staircase, but she’d never seen a picture of their mother. She nudged Emmie to move faster, interested. Behind her Cameron’s horse stumbled. Beth turned in alarm to find Cameron already dismounted and anxiously examining the stallion’s hoof.

“Is he hurt?”

She spoke to Cameron’s broad back. “No, he’s all right. Threw a shoe, didn’t you, old lad?” He patted the horse’s neck. “Go on up to the folly. Emmie knows the way.” Beth swallowed, never having ventured out by herself, but she decided she had to sometime. She nudged Emmie onward, and the old mare plodded up the path toward the higher hill. The day had turned hot, the air close among the trees. Beth wiped her face as she rode, hoping the folly would hold a cooler breeze.

She saw it before long, a picturesque stone building with moss on it. The flat sides had tiny windows and artfully crumbling brick. She could see why the folly had been built in that particular place, however. The view was breathtaking. Fold after fold of land rolled away toward the flat gray sea far away. A creek gushed in a gorge that dropped from the folly’s front edge.

“You’re certain Fellows has nothing new?” Hart’s voice rolled out of the folly, and Beth froze.

“I’ve said,” Ian answered him.

“You haven’t said anything at all. We have to talk about this. Why didn’t you tell me about Lily Martin?”

“I wanted to keep her safe.” There was a silence. “I didn’t help her at all.”

Lily Martin was the name of the woman killed in Coven Garden, Beth remembered, the night Ian had left for Paris. Fellows was convinced Ian killed her.