Dedicated Villain (29 page)

“A devil, rather,” muttered Lambert. “But we'll meet again, I promise you …” A glint came into his eyes, and his smile was not pleasant.

“And when you do,” said Lake uneasily, “you'll call out the dirty swine, eh?”

Lambert did not at once answer. Then he looked up. His smile was warm, his expression so open and cheerful that Lake thought he must have imagined that rather horrible and secretive look.

“Something like that, sir,” said Lambert. “But never heed me. I brought it all on myself, belike, and must take the consequences.”

“Good man.” Lake swung into the saddle, then reined around. “Oh, and don't forget—if you're up Chester way, look in on that acting troupe I mentioned. They put on a damn good show, and there are a couple of dashed pretty fillies …” He winked. “Impoverished now, but were once of good family, I'd think. Might be just the sort of—ah, diversion you need.”

“Thank you, sir. Good-bye.”

Lake waved his riding crop and started across the yard, his orderly and his escort falling in behind.

Lambert stared after him until horse and man had left the yard. His smile vanished then, and he spat contemptuously at the cobblestones. He could find all the “pretty fillies” he wanted, and with his looks he wasn't obliged to sink to the level of actress whores for his “diversion”!

By the time luncheon was finished the afternoon sun had become quite warm. Mathieson, who had been discovered to have a flair with the scissors, was required to trim Bradford's hair, the big man complaining it was getting so long as to be too hot under his wig. When this task was completed, Mathieson offered his services to Heywood, but that devoted swain had seen his love carry some mending to the steps of the caravan she now shared with Fiona and Moira Torrey, and he lost no time in hurrying to keep her company. Mathieson contemplated
wandering past the red coach to try what he could overhear of what Cuthbert, Torrey, and Gregor were plotting with my lady. The risk of being detected at this stage of the game seemed unwarranted, however. Now that Rob MacTavish was apparently too ill to join them, he could bide his time—at least for the next day or two.

Alec was repairing some saddle leathers, but his hazel eyes kept turning hopefully towards the table where Mrs. Dunnigan and Miss Torrey prepared vegetables for the evening meal. Alec, thought Mathieson, starting off in search of firewood, was sorely smitten. He wondered how it would end.

His own time here was almost at an end, that was certain. He had learned to respect life's often bizarre coincidences and even with the threat of MacTavish's arrival postponed, he knew it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that at any moment—particularly during a performance—some acquaintance might see him and denounce him for what he was. The phrase galled. “For what he was …” What was he? Had he yet reached the depth of depravity his father had foretold? Was he truly an evil man?

He was in the gold-splashed shade of the woods now, and halted as a small and familiar shape came towards him, sounding a friendly trill. So the little cat had not forgotten that he had (however inadvertently) saved her life. He glanced around furtively. No one in sight. Rumpelstiltskin had a weakness that was shared by both the cat and dog of one of Mathieson's few friends. It was possible that Picayune suffered the same addiction. He groped in his coat pocket and brought out the carefully wrapped piece of cheese he'd saved for the stallion.

“Here, cat,” he whispered, dropping to one knee and offering the bribe.

Picayune sat down and considered him.

“Here, you bad-tempered, silly-looking, flea-bag,” said Mathieson dulcetly. But when the cat merely yawned, he raised his voice to a squeak and uttered the approved, “Kitty, kitty.”

This address appeared to be more the thing. Picayune got up,
wafted her tail high, wandered closer, sniffed, and accepted. Afraid of frightening her, Mathieson remained still, watching her devour the cheese and tidy up with feline fastidiousness. Finding no more crumbs, she looked at him expectantly. “I have no more, Madam Glut,” he informed her. She replied with a friendly “mew.” Very slowly, he reached out to stroke her. She turned her head against his hand in a friendly way, then suddenly gave him a fast swipe with one well-equipped paw and shot into the woods.

“Chat révoltant!”
he flung after her, rubbing his scratched hand. He stood, and brushed mud from his knees. It was a very small scratch, but quite typical of the spiteful creature. He should have known better.

Grumpily, he returned his thoughts to more pleasing subjects—such as the unappetizing Freemon Torrey, or that complete toad, Lambert. But with the weird perversity of his mental processes of late, he was seized by guilt. Lord knows, of all men he had no right to judge
any
other! His own past was so disgraceful that he was unfit to— He pulled himself up short. What the
devil
ailed him? It was every man for himself in this harsh world, and if he was deceiving a parcel of witless idiots, well and good. Idiots deserved all they were dealt. And he worked hard for the eventual reward. He was bored as hell, but he dutifully played their silly games, acted in their foolish play, pretended to accept their so gullibly offered friendship … “I'll admit I'm glad to have a fellow of your calibre to help uth …”

He swore, and muttered defiantly, “Dammitall, Roland! Do not be wishing to have been born a good man, for 'tis too late. You cannot keep searching the soul you don't have! You're within sight of your goal—your
gold.
Snatch it with both hands, lucky man, and stop moping about!” He found that he was nudging his toe aimlessly at a tuft of grass, and swung a savage kick at it, which achieved nothing save to startle a moth and get mud all over his glossy boot. In a black rage he stamped deeper into the trees, took up a fallen branch and began to cut viciously at the shrubs he passed.

A splash, followed by a squeal, brought him up short. At no great distance a breathless feminine voice gasped, “You horrid,
horrid
beast! Now see what you've done!” And, interspersed with a succession of thuds, “Vile … besotted …
damnable
…”

Mathieson was running, his previous anger as nothing to the blazing wrath that now possessed him. By God, but if any man had
dared
…

He burst through the trees and was on the bank of a stream, where he halted abruptly.

On her hands and knees, red in the face and considerably wet and dishevelled, Fiona looked up at him in patent dismay, blew a curl from her heated forehead, and gasped, “Oh, Lud! I collect you heard me swearing. Well 'tis too late now, and I'm not sorry, so if you must preach at me about propriety—do so, but you shall have to manage in between my oaths and curses!”

Following which erratic speech, she began to pound a cudgel at the sodden lump of white cloth which huddled without visibly aggressive tendencies on a small boulder.

“What—the
deuce
are you doing?” panted Mathieson. “I thought—some loutish ploughboy was assaulting you!”

Awed, she stopped, and, her cudgel still upraised, looked at him, the cloud clearing from her brow and her stormy eyes beaming once more. “No!
Did
you? And is that why you raced through the trees like some avenging knight-errant? Oh, how
lovely
!”

He fought back a laugh. “Lovely, indeed! Not when I came up in time to hear such frightful language! Terms that never should pass a lady's lips.”

“I know.” Her eyes fell and a dark blush stained her cheeks. “I am very bad.” She peeped up at him, put aside her cudgel and said contritely, “I'm doing the laundry, you see, while Moira and Mrs. Dunnigan prepare our dinner. Only I don't think I'm very good at it, because 'tis much dirtier now than when I began. Indeed, I wouldn't blame you at all if you decided I am a sadly faulted pearl and not of ‘great price' at all.”

“Well, I might,” he warned. But his lips twitched, and there was teasing in the black eyes.

Relieved, she clapped her hands whereupon the garment she had attacked promptly slithered onto the muddy bank once more. With a shriek, she snatched it up, thus splashing suds on her cheek. “The nasty thing has done it again!” And inspecting the new stains, she cried tragically, “Oh—
Roly
!”

“Foolish child, 'tis not the end of the world. Here—let me help.” He seized one end of the garment, which appeared to be a nightdress, and held it up gingerly. “Gad, it
is
a trifle grubby, isn't it! Why were you hitting it?”

“That's what they do in India, and those places. My Uncle Henry brought back a book of his sketches, and there's one that distinctly shows ladies smashing away at washing on the banks of the Ganges, so I thought I'd have a try.”

He eyed her dubiously. “I don't see how you can beat away at the things without getting mud on 'em.”

“Nor do I.” She sighed, then went on brightly, “Unless— perhaps you have to get
in
! Oh, why did I not think of that!” She began to take off her pattens.

Wrenching his appreciative gaze from her beautifully shaped ankles, he commanded, “Disabuse your mind of that notion, Tiny Mite! Uncle Henry's sketches or no, you are not going to immerse yourself in the stream! And furthermore—stand up, Miss!—you have soapsuds all over your face!”

She stood obediently and held up her face to be de-soaped. Mathieson wrung out a corner of the nightdress and bent to her. The breeze stirred her hair, and the errant curl flirted down her forehead again. Half laughing, she reached up to push it back.

“No—do not,” he murmured, arresting her hand.

She smiled up at him, and the sunlight cast the shadow of her lashes across her cheekbone and emphasized the pert shape of her little nose.

It seemed to Mathieson that she was wrapped in light—a shimmering creature, more fragile than the finest crystal, her
daintiness breathtaking, every line of her lovely self so wondrously perfect. He stood utterly motionless, afraid that if he dared move or speak, or touch her, this enchanted moment would shatter and never again would he know such unspeakable delight.

Looking up at his rapt face, the merriment in her own faded into a new look; a tender awareness that had nothing in it of the child, as he had chosen to call her. He marvelled at the realization that this bewitching creature was a woman. A loving, kind, gentle woman, made the more dear, the more enchanting, because of her lack of affectation, her swiftly changing moods, and the loyalty that bound her to those she loved. Here, surely, was a chance for—

Shock ripped through him. He drew back, and suddenly he was terrified. The garment he held slipped from his unsteady hands and he laughed harshly, avoiding Fiona's eyes as he took it up and wrung it out.

“Alas, but now I've done it, and you'll be properly vexed. You've no right to be slaving like this, little one. And you shall not!” He strode over to the ridiculously ambitious pile of laundry she had brought, and gathered it up while talking rather feverishly. “I'll have no more of this manual labour by a lady of Quality. We're to camp here tonight and I gather we will return here after the performance tomorrow, no? There'll be ample time for some deserving and industrious washerwoman in Sandipool, or however the place is called, to benefit from all this extra custom. Come, Mademoiselle Tiny Mite. I shall endeavour to escort you safely home through the menace of the dandelions and then take these to be properly and professionally cleansed.” And still without meeting her grave eyes, he led the way through the trees and into the meadow.

Five minutes later, Fiona watched him ride out, a large bundle tied to his saddle. With a slow and tender smile she murmured, “Coward!”

It was warm and fragrant in the hayloft and Mathieson laughed softly as the girl who lay in his arms uttered a faint whimper and pressed closer against him. Beams of mellow afternoon sunlight slanted through cracks and knotholes in the old wooden walls and illumined her flushed face; a comely face, and a beautiful and tantalizingly well-rounded young body. He'd not dreamed when he'd bowed his head to enter the washerwoman's small cottage that upon looking up again he would encounter the admiring gaze of so pretty a wench. Having completed the transaction for the laundry, he had enquired as to the whereabouts of a tavern. With coy immediacy, Jenny had offered to show him the way. Her mother's cottage was a little distance beyond Sandipool, and long before they'd reached the toll road whereon the tavern was located, Jenny was comfortably settled on the saddle in front of Mathieson and he had claimed his first kiss. It had at once become clear that although it was the first embrace they had shared, it was far from being the first she'd known. Her mouth was practiced and eager; her eyes invited; his caresses had won answering caresses, and his suggestion that they find a quiet
place to “chat” had resulted in her guiding him to the lonely old barn.