The Pretender (9 page)

With the wind whipping sharp across his face, stung red by the salt of the sea, Douglas would look out across the churning waters of Kyleakin to the cottage lights that dimmed and flickered along the Scottish mainland. If there were a mist, it would turn the moon into a fat milky pearl, hovering in an ocean of shimmering haze, and he would let it embrace him, that mist, like a smoky mantle.

But he was far away from his home now and Douglas moved without a sound along the thick carpet, winding his way past doors and along curving stairwells that daren’t give the slightest creak beneath his weight. He stopped for a time in a long picture gallery, lit blue by the moon beaming in through a wall of windows on one side. Portraits of Draytons past stared down at him from paneled walls, Tudor personages predominating, some he recognized, some he did not. There was a good portrait of King Henry the Eighth in all his massive glory, staring out regally from behind that podgy bearded face with the bland air of someone born to royalty. Lords and ladies, knights and princes, they stood as a testament to the generations past. There was a portrait of what must have been one of the earlier dukes of Sudeleigh, dressed in the style of the previous century and looking a great deal like the present duke. Children posed with hounds. Ladies looked serene and noble. And at the very end of the gallery, framed in gilt, a single portrait hung alone.

At first glance, Douglas thought it might be a portrait of Lady Elizabeth, for she had the same red-gold hair, the same slender face, and those keen hazel eyes. She sat
holding a book, her hair hanging free about her shoulders. But as he took a closer look, noting the details of the costume, he realized this wasn’t a portrait of Lady Elizabeth at all. Instead it was the young princess, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, painted when she’d been a young lass, long before she’d ever become Virgin Queen of England.

The resemblance was uncanny, and Douglas stared at the portrait a while, comparing the two feature-for-feature. It was as he turned to leave that Douglas noticed the ring on the slender finger of the portrait’s subject, the same ring Elizabeth had offered to give him the previous night at the inn, if he would agree to pose as her betrothed.

Now, some four-and-twenty hours later, they were wed.

As he left the gallery, Douglas spotted a door slightly open down the hall. He recognized it as the duke’s study, and wondered if perhaps he might find a book inside to help him relax. But when he pushed the door open, he found himself stopping to gaze at the sight that met him on the other side.

She was sitting in an armchair, asleep in the light of the fire, wearing a white nightgown that buttoned to her neck, making her look more vulnerable somehow. Douglas entered the room on silent feet, stopping just beside the chair. A book lay open in her hands. He reached for it and as he knelt staring down at her in the flickering hearthlight, he found himself studying her face for what was really the first time, the sweep of lashes, the pale, tiny-veined lids, a nose that wasn’t pert or quaint or even delicate, but slender and straight.

He looked at her mouth for a very long time. He couldn’t help himself. And suddenly, his own mouth longed to taste it, to feel the fullness of her lips move against his.

Lulled by the embrace of the fire, by the pull and promise of her kiss, Douglas found himself lowering his head to hers.

The moment they touched, mouth to mouth, the fire snapped in the hearth, shooting sparks every which way.

She jerked awake and stared at him in the firelight. Her breath, warm and startled, fanned against his face. He straightened over her slowly, watching her blink, her brow furrowing in confusion. Douglas didn’t say a word, just held himself still and stared at her in the glow of the fire.

A few moments later, her eyes drifted closed once again.

Taking up a blanket folded over a nearby chair, Douglas draped it gently over her. She sighed and curled into it. He tossed another log upon the fire, and then lowered himself into the chair across from her, crossing his legs to sit and watch her sleep in the firelight.

“Bess, please, just talk to Father. He loves you. He will listen to you. I know you can make him reconsider this . . . this unreasonable proposal.”

The sisters were standing together in Elizabeth’s bedchamber, surrounded by a scattering of stockings, gowns, and slippers. It was late afternoon. The sunlight outside was just beginning to gray. Elizabeth pulled another gown from inside her wardrobe, giving it a quick glance before she tossed it with the others already heaped across the bed.

She stood back for a moment and studied the burgeoning pile of lace and satin and silk.

What exactly, she wondered, did one wear to stay at a farm on a remote Scottish island? She quickly cast aside the pastel yellow silk with the Belgian lace edging, then turned toward her fretting sister.

“Bella, I have already told you I don’t wish Father to reconsider. Unreasonable proposal or no, I want to go to
Skye. Can you not see? All I have to do is get through these next two months and then I will be free, free to do as I please, when I please. I need never fear having to live under the thumb of a domineering husband. I need never again listen to Father lament my spinsterhood as if it were some strange new disease one of my sisters might catch. I can live my life in total independence just as I have always dreamed.”

But Isabella just stared at her, stared at her for some time, her face screwed up with anxiety until she finally blurted out, “But you don’t understand. This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen!”

Supposed to happen . . . ?

“Bella, what do you mean?”

Isabella turned away and crossed the room to stand before the window with her arms folded tightly over her chest. She had her back to the room, quiet, still. After a moment, Elizabeth could see her shoulders trembling.

Was she crying?

“Bell? Bella, what is wrong? I don’t understand what you mean. What was supposed to happen?”

Isabella turned to face her. All of her emotions—confusion, reluctance, dread—fluttered across her face like falling autumn leaves. “Oh, Bess, don’t you see? This is all my fault!”

“Your fault?”

“Yes. I’m the one who made you do this. I felt so badly for not telling you the truth about our trip to Lord Purfoyle’s estate. If only I had told you as soon as I knew of it, then maybe we wouldn’t have ended up on that road right when that sheep was standing in the middle of it, but Father said if I told you . . . and well, after I found
you that morning, I thought that if you married Mr. MacKinnon, it would do away with any threat of Lord Purfoyle completely. Which it has. And that’s good. But now this. I knew Father would be angry, but I never expected . . . I never even dreamed he would demand that you stay married. He’s a Scottish farmer! You’re the daughter of a duke! I was certain Father would demand an annulment and then it would no longer matter. But instead it is such a mess.”

Elizabeth took her sister by the arms. “Bella, stop. Please don’t blame yourself for this. I’m the one who drank all that whisky. I’m the one who ended up with him in my bed. And in the end, I’m the one who vowed to be his wife in that taproom.”

“Yes . . . but now how will you ever find the right man? The one you are truly destined to be with?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Isabella, there is no right man for me. I’ve always known that. I’m not like you. I don’t believe there is always one special woman for one special man destined to run across one another in some crowded ballroom, who will know the moment their eyes meet that they were meant to spend their lives together. It just isn’t logical to me.”

Bella lifted her head, looking at her sister as if she were suddenly looking upon the face of a stranger. “How can you say that, Elizabeth? What of love? Of passion?”

“Sweet Bella. Love and passion, swiftly beating hearts and tender romance, they are the things of novels and poetry to me. I know you believe in them, believe without doubt that you will one day find your Prince Charming, and I love that in you, that unflinching faith in the idea, truly I do. But just as it is so much a part of
you, that faith, it just isn’t in my nature to spend my days dreaming about a knight errant on a white horse or wishing for pretty words whispered in the moonlight. I’m simply not made in that way.”

Bella wasn’t to be convinced. “You only think that because you have never once considered it any other way. What of children, Bess? I’ve seen you with Caro, how you are with her, have been with her since the day she was born. You love her so much. Do you never wish to be a mother yourself? To know what it is to give life to a child of your own body?”

A child.
Elizabeth hesitated. For the first time in her life she felt something, like the flutter of a bird’s wing, deep, deep inside her. It lasted only for a moment, then it was gone.

“I won’t need to have any children of my own, Bella, when I can be the eccentric aunt to all the many you’re going to have—when you find your Prince Charming, of course. Then I shall spend my days indulging their every whim and spoiling their supper with sweetmeats every chance I get.”

But Bella was still frowning. “I shall miss you terribly, you know. As will the others. Caroline is beside herself about it. She’s hidden herself away beneath her bed and refuses to come out. And Mattie is quite certain you’ll be snatched away by faeries in the middle of the night. Catherine simply takes out her displeasure on the spinet, pounding on the keys till I swear I can hear them begging her to stop.”

Elizabeth took her sister’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “And I shall miss you all, too. But really, two months isn’t so long, and just think of what a grand
adventure I will have to tell you when I return.” She put on a smile. “Now help me finish in here so I can be on my way and then home all the sooner.”

Bella nodded reluctantly and then contented herself with folding Elizabeth’s chemises, packing them neatly inside one of her traveling trunks while Elizabeth took to the wardrobe with renewed vigor. She picked through her bonnets and shoes, shifts and stockings, tossing them at the open lid of the trunk, while others were left behind. The work of it kept her hands busy; she only wished it would have kept her thoughts occupied, too, so she wouldn’t have to think about the weeks to come.

Much as she’d like Bella and everyone else to believe she was assured of the challenge she faced, the fact of the matter was she was terrified to her toes.

All her life she had stood fast in her desire for a life independent of the captivity of marriage. After all, she had been named for the Virgin Queen of England, the unflappable Elizabeth, who had needed no man to show her how to rule an entire kingdom. But just like the bird who teeters at the edge of its nest readying to take flight for the very first time, Elizabeth found a small part of her clinging to the security she had always known at home.

What would it be like, she wondered, living in a land as foreign to her as the Far East, a land that was peopled by raiders and rebels, whose children were taught war cries instead of nursery rhymes? Would they look on her as an enemy? Would she ever see her home, her family, again? Would some kelpie come and snatch her away while she lay in her bed at night?

Elizabeth was so lost in her jumble of thoughts, she never noticed that Isabella had come to stand beside her.

“Elizabeth, what of Father’s condition—that you not consummate your marriage?”

“What of it?”

“Do you really think you can hold fast to it?”

“Isabella Anne!”

Isabella instantly blushed. “Well, I cannot help but be the slightest bit curious about it . . . about what it would be like to . . .”

“To fornicate with a man?”

“Bess! Must you always be so forthright?”

“What would you prefer I call it? ‘Basketmaking’ like the ladies in mother’s tea circle?”

Isabella had to giggle at that, remembering how they’d sat one summer’s afternoon while her mother and her small society of friends, dressed in their finest gowns, had discussed the intricacies of “basketmaking” all the while thinking the girls none the wiser.

“You cannot deny Mr. MacKinnon is a very handsome man.”

Elizabeth looked at her. “Handsome? I suppose he is, in a rugged, utterly primitive sort of way.”

“He is quite tall.”

“Lumbering,” Elizabeth countered. “Like a tree.”

“And his face,” Isabella went on, “is very strong. Almost as if it were cut from solid stone.”

“The man rebels against the idea of a razor. He is forever unkempt. His hair is too long, and he always wears it tied back in that ridiculous string of leather with bits of it falling about his forehead. In fact, now that I think of it, he
is
quite a barbarian.”

Isabella, however, was of another mind, one where knights and damsels dwelled in shining castles that stood
high in the clouds. She scarcely heard her sister’s comments. “His eyes are like iced steel, so blue they can just melt you with their stare. And his mouth, full, firm, uncompromising . . .”

But they can turn to tenderness with just the touch of akiss. . .

The thought came unbidden.

“Elizabeth, are you feeling all right? Your face . . . it looks suddenly flushed.”

Elizabeth pressed a hand against her cheek, disgusted to feel it warm beneath her fingers. She turned away. “From the way you rattle on, it should have been your bed he slept in, not mine. I would swear you are half smitten with the man. Now, enough of this silliness. The day grows late and I’ve packing to finish. Where is that footman? We called for him some time ago to come and fetch these trunks and he—”

She yanked her bedroom door wide, stopping when she found the way blocked on the other side.

“What are you doing here?”

MacKinnon stood in the doorway, filling it, his face dark and impassive. His eyes, the same ones Isabella had just been extolling in poetry, looked at her hard. They never once left hers.

“I came to fetch your trunks.”

Elizabeth felt her arms go to gooseflesh beneath his stare. “We have footmen to see to that, Mr. MacKinnon.” It was all she could think of to say.

“And I’ve arms that are just as able to do the job, my lady.” He pushed past her and walked into her room without waiting for any invitation. The place seemed to shrink with just the arrival of him.

Elizabeth was suddenly very conscious of the mess they’d made in packing and started retrieving some of the scattered things from the floor. “I’m not quite finished packing. Perhaps if you—”

“Is that one there ready to go?” He motioned toward a trunk that stood nearest the door.

“Yes, but you’d better wait for the footman. It really is quite heavy—”

He lifted the trunk in one swift sweep, hoisting it upon his broad shoulder. He balanced the heavy case seemingly without effort, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back for the other.”

Elizabeth merely stood and watched him go. She had no other choice.

When he was gone, Isabella came across the room to stand beside her. “Did you see that, the way he lifted that trunk as if it weighed nothing? It would have taken two of our footmen to carry that.”

Elizabeth didn’t say anything.

She couldn’t.

It was taking every effort for her to keep her mouth from falling open.

They were leaving at dawn the following morning, traveling on horseback since a carriage, even a small gig pulled by one, wouldn’t be able to travel any further than Fort William into the Highlands.

At supper the night before, Douglas had convinced the duke that they would be safer on land since the waters on Scotland’s western coast were heavily patrolled by English cutters on the lookout for the fugitive Prince Charles. He assured him he could steer them through
safely using little known drover’s paths and hunter’s trails far away from the main roads. Elizabeth’s trunks with her clothing, books, and other personal belongings, however, would be too much of a hindrance for them to bring along. So her things would have to be sent separately by boat, meeting them when they arrived on Skye nearly a fortnight hence.

At precisely six o’clock, wearing her best riding habit and smart cocked hat, Elizabeth strode out the front door of Drayton Hall, pulling on her gloves. The morning had broken only a half hour before to a sky laden with low-scudding clouds and the threat of coming rain. The heaviness of the air, however, only matched the heaviness of the mood as the Draytons assembled en masse to bid Elizabeth farewell.

Elizabeth embraced her younger sisters, first Catherine and Matilda, reminding them to write to her every day while she was away. Caro, who had been coaxed out from under her bed only moments before, clasped her pudgy arms around Elizabeth’s voluminous skirts and begged for the umpteenth time to go with her. In order to convince her to let go, Elizabeth had to remind her of how difficult the journey would be and that they didn’t have lemon syllabub in Scotland. She promised she would be back with lots of stories to tell her and would send her youngest sister a present when she got there.

After disentangling herself from Caro, Elizabeth turned to Bella, who managed to smile at Elizabeth even with tears glistening in her eyes.

“What shall I do without you here?” Isabella whispered against her cheek as she hugged her tightly. “We shall all of us waste away from boredom without having
you here to yell at Father over breakfast about Socrates or the state of things in the Colonies.”

“Then you shall just have to yell at him in my stead, Bella.” She looked at her sister seriously. “I am counting on you to see to things here for me while I’m away. Someone has to help Caroline with her ciphering. And Mattie, you must make certain she practices her penmanship each day. She’s developing quite a lovely hand. Oh, and Father always forgets to take time away for his afternoon walk in the garden. It keeps his temper calm and that makes Mother a much happier woman. Will you do that for me?”

Fighting hard against her emotions, Isabella nodded.

The duchess embraced Elizabeth next, squeezing her more tightly than she’d ever done before. “Be careful, my dearest,” she whispered. “Scotland is a vastly different place than England.” She pressed a small pouch that felt heavy with coin into Elizabeth’s gloved hand. “Just in case you should need it . . .”