Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
It was a vulgar conversation, and Maddie could not understand how the older woman had come by such power to provoke her. In the five years since she had known her, she had thought herself immune to her stepmother's jibes. She was mistaken.
"So be it Maddie. It shall be an interesting
ménage atrois,
if you've resolved to have him—the daughter for his wife and the widow for his mistress. Even Deveryn's circles will be shocked, and that's saying something! I wonder how long you will be able to stomach the scandal?"
The door closed softly behind her,-and Maddie thankfully sank down onto the bed. She was shaking! For some few moments she stared disconsolately at the new woolen bedsocks which peeped from under the hem of her cotton nightrail. A tear dropped to her lap. As though it had scalded her, she surged to her feet. She stalked to the window and opened it wide, breathing deeply of the pure, chill air uncontaminated by the stench of summer's roses. It occurred to her that the pleasure of cultivating that particular flower was lost to her forever. That thought seemed the most inconsolable of all.
She turned back into the room and began to pace restlessly. Her eyes were caught by a movement in the mirror. She halted. The reflection drew her like a magnet.
Maddie was used to glancing at herself in the looking glass each time she changed her garments. But never before had she subjected her person to such a cool, critical scrutiny. A young girl with a tangle of loose copper curls, huge dark eyes and a small square chin stared resolutely back at her. 0 ne hand went up to brush the freckles on the bridge of the small straight nose. They remained obstinately in place. Her brows drew together.
The garments in her clothes press brought even less comfort. In a fit of impatience, she reached for the dark, bottle- green riding habit and donned it quickly. Cynthia seemed to have an unending supply of black mourning gowns and garments. Maddie's means did not stretch to such luxuries. She tied a black silk ribbon around one arm and gave herself a cursory glance in the mirror. You'll do, she told herself severely, and made for the door.
She reached the stables without the alarm being given and gave Duncan a message for her aunt, excusing her absence on the flimsiest of pretexts. Let them make what they liked of it, but Maddie had determined that she would have some relief for a few hours at least from the discomposing presence of Deveryn and her stepmother.
Maddie's disappearance occasioned her aunt not the least anxiety, though she admitted to a slight pique on not being told in person that her niece intended to spend the day with the Moncrieffs. With Deveryn, it was otherwise. He was at first amused at Maddie's stealthy decampment, conjecturing that this was a vain attempt to avoid the inevitable interview with himself. As afternoon gave way to evening, his tolerance began to wear thin. By the time dinner was over and still no sign of Maddie, his lordship's displeasure, silent and foreboding, was felt by everyone. He was on the point of saddling 'Thelo to go in search of her, when she rode in.
"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded and he turned to watch as she led her mare into its stall.
"Is Kelpie about?" she asked anxiously. "I've already asked Jacob. He says he hasn't seen hide nor hair of her all day."
"Don't try to turn the subject. I asked you a question."
She gave him a furious look and brushed past him. He followed her into the tackroom.
"When I ask you a question, I expect the dignity of a reply."
"What? Not now, Deveryn, please." Kelpie's box was empty. Perhaps Janet could put her mind to rest. She turned toward the door and halted.
He filled the doorframe, one hand braced on each door jamb. His posture was threatening, but Maddie was not in the humour to be intimidated. She had heard in the village that Will Fraser had taken advantage of the thaw to go into the hills for strays that had become separated from his flock. She knew that he would have had to pass close to Drumoak before striking out on the old drovers' road that would take him to Cumbernauld. And Will Fraser was not to be trusted. That thought had sped her on her way home. And now, there was no sign of Kelpie.
"I asked you where you had been."
"With Malcolm. We went for a ride to look over Dalmeny House." Her voice was edged with impatience.
"The Earl of Roseberry's new show place?"
"Yes."
As she tried to push past him, he caught her by the wrist. "Not so fast. I take it someone can verify this eock and bull story?"
"Like whom, for instance?" "The earl for a start."
"The earl?" For a moment, amusement showed on her face. "Deveryn, you have a strange idea of the circles I move in. It's his housekeeper with whom I have a nodding acquaintance. Besides, the roads were impassable. What business is it of yours anyway?"
He ignored this last provocation, and said in a more controlled tone, "Your groom was with you, surely?"
"What groom?" She looked to be mystified by his question.
"Are you telling me that you have been in Moncrieffs company for most of the day without benefit of chaperone?"
"There's nothing unusual in that."
"Well there damn well ought to be!" He was practically shouting at her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Maddie caught a movement. She looked past Deveryn and saw Duncan entering the stable. It was evident that he had heard the viscount's voice raised in anger. Duncan's first look of surprise gave way to belligerence. He stood behind the viscount and said stolidly, "Yer wanted in the house, Miss Maddie. I'll take care o' Banshee."
Maddie felt the tension go out of her. Duncan was her self- appointed watchdog. No one would lay a hand on her in his presence, and she very much feared 'from the viscount's expression that he intended to do her bodily harm.
Deveryn turned slowly, and his eyes narrowed on the broad muscular frame of the other man.
Maddie said quickly, "Duncan, where is Kelpie?" and she tried to edge past the viscount.
"She were wi' Sam earlier."
"And where is Sam now?"
The big man shrugged his shoulders. "I dinna ken, miss. Mayhap he went to the hills to look for sheep."
"That can't be right. All our sheep are accounted for." On an afterthought, she asked, "Was he alone?"
"Nay. Will Fraser was wi' him."
"My God. Kelpie
is
with Will Fraser. He's taken her to Cumbernauld."
Her first thought was to mount up and make for the shepherd's bothy that lay six or so miles along the drovers' track to the small village of Cumbernauld. She sliced a glance at Deveryn and her resolve faltered.
"Will Fraser has taken Kelpie to Cumbernauld," she said with quiet desperation. "I'm sure of it."
His answer was to grasp her by the elbow and thrust her toward the open door of the stable. "Kelpie is with Sam. You heard Duncan. I've already told you that I fixed things with Fraser."
Duncan moved to block their exit, his huge frame tensing for action. The viscount's insolent gaze swept over him. "You'll get out my way, man, if you know what's good for you.
Not a muscle moved in Duncan's face, but his eyes fastened on Maddie, asking a question.
Duncan's brute strength was proverbial in Lothian. She was sure that Deveryn must have heard something of it. She was equally sure that it would weigh little or nothing with the viscount if the big man got in his way.
"Let us pass, Duncan," she said softly, and the big man moved aside. His relief was patent.
The interview which followed with Deveryn and her aunt, Cynthia looking on as an interested spectator, was strained and awkward in the extreme. Little was said by the viscount, but his silence at every excuse which Maddie offered for her conduct conveyed his censure. Even Aunt Nell was made to feel the bite of his displeasure. When she tentatively admitted that her chaperonage of Maddie had been sadly lacking, Deveryn said nothing to dissuade her from her opinion. The matter of Kelpie and Will Fraser was brushed aside as being of little consequence, and Maddie gave up trying to convince Deveryn that the shepherd was not to be trusted.
Once in her room, she gave vent to her temper. Cushions were knocked to the floor, books and papers swept from her small desk, and her riding boots stripped from her feet and thrown furiously into a corner. Having relieved the sharp edge of anger by these small acts of defiance, Maddie flung herself down on the bed and lay staring up at the ceiling.
Not only did she find Deveryn's high handed ordering of her life intolerable, but to add insult to injury, no one had thought to ask her when she had last eaten. And while they had gorged themselves silly at
her
board, she, the mistress of Drumoak, was left to starve. If she had been a small child and sent to her room without supper for some minor infraction of discipline she could not have felt more humiliated.
Deveryn understood nothing! Nor would he listen! He had blown up over a trifle—a petty disregard for conventions which were never observed to the letter save in the polite World of London. Good God! It was common knowledge that the morals which prevailed among the higher reaches of the English aristocracy were as free and easy as those of the lowest bawdy house in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket! And he had the temerity to call her to account. Hypocrite!
Her dog had been stolen. And Deveryn imagined that Will Fraser could be bribed by a purse and intimidated by the consequence of a viscount. This was Scotland, for God's sake!
More than once, she strode to the door intent on confronting Lord Deveryn and forcing him to listen to reason. Dammit, she needed his help! But her courage failed her.
By morning, Will and her dog would be miles away. Tonight they would get no further than the bothy at the ford over the River Esk. Neither Deveryn nor all the king's men could stop her going after Kelpie. For a moment she thought of enlisting Duncan's aid, but decided against it. Deveryn would damn anyone who lifted a hand to help her. The danger was minimal. She would take her riding crop of course. But Sam, her own shepherd, she hoped, would be there. She thought that she could make it back by morning and no one the wiser.
Downstairs in the front parlour, a pall had settled like one of the insidious winter fogs that creep in from the Firth of Forth. The viscount was seen to be making heavy inroads into the bottle of brandy which Cynthia had procured for him after Maddie's ignominious retreat to her bedchamber. The burden of conversation was, for the most part, left to the two ladies.
A less clever woman than Cynthia would have been at some pains to discredit her absent rival, especially after so recent a contretemps. A glance at Deveryn's brooding expression satisfied Cynthia that the viscount's thoughts were feeding his anger. She listened sympathetically as Miss Spencer lamely defended her niece's frequent lapses of propriety and forbore to smile when Deveryn's lips grew grimmer. That the aunt was damning Maddie even further in the gentleman's eyes was very evident to Cynthia.
When the tea trolley was brought in, it was Cynthia who acted as hostess, dispensing tea and biscuits to the manner born. She was in her element.
"I wonder if Maddie had any dinner?" Miss Spencer mused aloud. "Perhaps I . . ."
"A dish of want will do. that chit a world of good," interjected Deveryn with a ferocity which had Miss Spencer retreat behind the thick lenses of her spectacles.
Though there was much that she might have said in rebuttal to his lordship's harsh rejoinder, she wisely kept her counsel. It was a relief when Janet came in to clear away the tea things, and she could finally make her excuses and retire to her room.
Though the temptation was great, Cynthia did not linger overlong. In answer to her query, she learned that the solicitor was expected on the morrow. She waited, hopeful that the viscount would give her some clue to what he intended to do about her husband's property. When none came, and he showed no interest in her next observation, she also withdrew and left him to his silent ruminations.
It was a good thirty minutes later when Deveryn stalked from the front parlour and made for the kitchen. Janet and a young girl he recognized as Cynthia's abigail were chuckling over some comment which had been made before he stepped over the threshold. Flat irons were heating on the stove, and on the table was a black silk frock which the abigail was assiduously pressing with a wet cloth and a hissing flat iron.
Deveryn addressed himself to Janet, "Where is this drovers' road that goes to Cumbernauld?"
She looked at him for a long moment as if he had spoken in a foreign language, then answered, "Ye'll no be going there in the dark o' night?"