He gazed out over the calm ocean for a moment. “If I was on that sad vessel, I would seem to have washed up to shore like Venus on her shell. Yet it all seems very deserted. Where is this interesting place?”
“This is Argyleshire. Unless you speak Gaelic, you would not be able to pronounce the name of the place.”
“Good Lord! I’m in Scotland?” He shivered. “Miss Drake, in spite of the clear sky, the beneficent sun, and the sweet, burning light of your own presence, it isn’t warm on this beach.”
“Oh, good gracious! Here, take this!” Prudence held out her paisley shawl.
The man managed to peel off his soaking jacket and began to reach for the shawl. Then he dropped his hand to rub at his face, instead. He had begun to shake.
“Devil take it!”
“Pray remember your language, sir,” Prudence said with a glance at Bobby, who was watching the man wide-eyed.
“I’m sorry, guardian angel, truly. But I seem to be as weak as a dandy after six bottles. May I prevail upon you to help me? I should indeed be grateful for the shawl, for I am regrettably ill-clothed, and it’s most inappropriate to be wet when it’s so deuced cold.”
Prudence stepped up to him to drape her wrap around his shoulders. Instantly he caught her to him and pressed her body into his. The chill moisture from his shirt seeped into her dress.
“You’re very warm,” he said with a shaky laugh against her ear. “Will you share a little?”
“Pray, sir, you don’t help your cause. Do you want my assistance or not? For I am rapidly beginning to think I must leave you here to your fate.”
“Then perhaps you should, for now I am disgracefully aware of a desire to kiss you, angel.” His lips moved against her hair. “If I am to die out here on this cold beach, that would be my password into Paradise. But instead I promise to be the soul of rectitude, dear Miss Drake, as sober and prudent as a dried apple, if you will but help me off this accursed beach. In the meantime, your shawl will transform me into your aged grandam, as harmless an old lady as ever walked this earth.”
He released her and stepped back. With a flourish, he managed to swing her shawl around his shoulders. Taking up her parasol, he opened it. In the next instant, he transformed himself into a caricature of a wizened old dame.
In spite of herself, Prudence laughed. He was just a young man, full of nonsense and bravado, maybe no older than she was, and cold, and in shock. He needed help, not judgment.
“I can walk, ma’am,” he said. “Lead on!”
She turned and took Bobby by the hand. The child pulled back to look over his shoulder. The man was following, if a little unsteadily, his sodden jacket slung over his shoulder. Yet at the turn around the end of the shale ledge, he sat suddenly on the rock and dropped his head to his knees.
Prudence released Bobby’s hand and hurried back. The stranger looked up and grinned.
“Don’t discompose yourself, dear angel. Even Jonah was able to save himself, and he was swallowed whole and regurgitated before being washed up.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “Let me help you. Put your arm about my shoulders. The house isn’t far.”
He shook his head, but Prudence slipped her arm about his waist to help him stand. Beneath the wet shirt he was supple and lean, yet his flesh felt icy. Leaning on her shoulder, he walked up the beach, Bobby clinging to his other hand.
Yet when they reached the straw hat full of shells, the man bent to retrieve it and handed it to the little boy.
“I imagine you must wear this if you’re to return home, sir,” he said. “Allow me to carry your treasures for you.”
The shells disappeared into one of his pockets, and he placed the hat on the child’s hair.
“Are you sure you’re not the silkie?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know. I might be anything. Who is he?”
“It’s an old folk tale,” Prudence said. “A belief that some seals can turn into men at night to visit the land. They’re called silkies.”
“You can tell if you see a seal with blue eyes that he’s really a silkie,” Bobby explained earnestly. “They come to shore and turn into men, so they can meet real ladies and steal their hearts. But they always abandon them and their babies, and go back to the sea in the end.”
“I see,” the man said. “Dashing, of course, but rather thoughtless of them.” He turned to Prudence and gently disengaged himself. “I believe I can manage now, angel. But thanks for the assistance. It felt wonderful. If I thought it would always result in your warm hand at my waist, and my arm around your enchanting shoulders, I would happily suffer shipwreck every day.”
Prudence looked up at him. He was too pale and struggling not to shiver, but he didn’t seem in any further need of help.
“And if I thought for one moment that you might be taking advantage of me, sir,” she said. “I should wish that you had drowned.”
Her answer was a charming smile. “Angel, you are too severe. For so would I.”
Bobby let go of his hand and ran ahead toward a track that led up from the beach. A stout, respectable lady stood there shielding her eyes with one hand.
“Look, Mrs. MacEwen!” Bobby cried. “We have found a man.”
* * *
Prudence changed her dress and vigorously sponged away the marks of salt water. The fabric was still wet from its contact with the man’s body. She wished she could as easily scrub away her uncomfortable feelings.
How could a man in danger of dying of exposure offer all that absurd, meaningless gallantry? And to her, of all people!
She glanced at herself in the mirror.
Unlike her sisters, she wasn’t pretty. Everything about her was nondescript. Her coloring was altogether too washed out and pale, even her straw-blond hair—it had none of Bobby’s golden lights. She was a governess, for heaven’s sake! And she had problems of her own.
Half an hour later, Prudence sat in the drawing room while Mr. and Mrs. MacEwen tried to decide what to do with the fellow who had been so inconsiderate as to wash himself up on their beach. Bobby had been sent to the nursery, where one of the maids was giving him a bath. The stranger had been allowed to sit in the kitchen, warm himself, and take some refreshment, while the cook hovered over him and no doubt happily returned his outlandish flirtation.
“I cannot think that it is perfectly respectable to be found on a beach,” Mrs. MacEwen said, tapping her fingers on the arm of the sofa.
“It’s a villainous, rascally way to be found, to be sure.” Mr. MacEwen examined his pipe and poked in the bowl with a wire.
“I don’t like it, Mr. MacEwen. The man claims to be English, yet he comes from France, where that evil Napoleon was defeated just last year. Let us give the fellow a shilling and send him on his way.”
“Yet his speech is very elegant.” Mr. MacEwen knocked the pipe against the edge of the grate.
“Fancy words are all very well, but any jackanapes can learn to ape his betters. Look at his appearance! No gentleman ever wore such clothing. It is that of any rough sailor.”
“It is most distressing, indeed.”
“And he says he does not know who he is. How can anyone not know their own name?”
“No one but a scoundrel, Mrs. MacEwen, no doubt at all.”
“If the fellow ever had anything finer in his background, he has come down in the world.”
“An excellent supposition, Mrs. MacEwen. Fled creditors, most like, or the law.”
“Oh, good gracious! You do not think he is a criminal?” Mrs. MacEwen turned to Prudence. “How could you bring him here, Miss Drake? When you and Bobby are hiding at the risk of your very lives. That is enough, surely, without threatening all of us with a vagabond found on the beach.”
“I had no wish to find him, Mrs. MacEwen,” Prudence said, coloring a little. “I am very sensible of your kindness in sheltering Bobby and me. Yet I believe this man has had a gentleman’s education.”
“Has he, by God?” Mr. MacEwen began to fill his pipe with fresh tobacco. “How do you know?”
“He talked about things.” Even to Prudence’s own ears, it sounded lame.
“Then he is a gentleman who has disgraced himself and makes his own way. You mark my words! There is no more dangerous type. Forgotten his name, indeed! I never heard such fustian. Remembers it all too well and is afraid we’ll have heard ill of it, I’ll be bound. Let him have his meal and be gone from here!”
“Yet he’s a likely-looking lad,” Mr. MacEwen said. “I have given him one of my shirts. You’ll have no objection to my giving the lad an old shirt, Mrs. MacEwen?”
Prudence caught his merry eye and smiled back. Mr. MacEwen often teased his wife.
Mrs. MacEwen frowned. “That is no more than Christian charity.”
“Nor a bed in the stable for tonight? He isn’t strong enough yet, I’ll warrant, to be taking to the road. Besides, what if he was a peer’s son or an honorable man with a family, and we turned him out of doors on a cold night?”
“If you lock the house up tight, there’d be no danger in letting him lodge in the stable, I suppose.”
“And tomorrow he can do a little work for his supper. Maybe by then he’ll have recalled his name. If it’s a good one, there might be a reward in it.”
“Very well, sir,” Mrs. MacEwen said, “but on your own head be it, if we’re all found murdered in our beds.”
“What do you say, Miss Drake? You are very quiet. What shall we do about this flotsam or jetsam? Shall we shelter this foundling of yours from the sea?”
Prudence smiled again at his kindly face, wreathed now in tobacco smoke.
“As my father always said of you, Mr. MacEwen, he never had a friend less likely to follow anyone else’s counsel. You were kind enough to give shelter to Bobby and me, when I turned up like a beggar at the door. So I believe you have made up your mind to keep him, whatever I might say.”
“And so he has, Prudence,” Mrs. MacEwen said, wagging her finger. “So he has. But what time have we for strangers when we have your problem on our hands? What about that, Mr. MacEwen? What if that black lord comes here after wee Bobby?”
“Oh, that can’t happen,” Prudence said with a great deal more conviction than she felt. “How could Lord Belham possibly find us here?”
“Devil take it, Roberts! What a damnable, bloody, God-forsaken country! How much longer, for pity’s sake?”
The carriage moved like a March hare along the rutted track, now stopping, now leaping ahead with a jolt. The man inside leaned back against the squabs and continued to curse with considerable invention.
“The last milestone indicated only three more miles, my lord,” his secretary replied.
My lord hammered with his cane, and the carriage stopped.
“Then I shall walk to Dunraven from here,” he said. “Another hour more or less will not make any damned difference to the life of a five-year-old boy. I will probably arrive before you, but if not, tell the countess she may expect me.”
“Yes, my lord,” Roberts said.
His lordship stepped from carriage.
The peaks on each side of the road sparkled with whiteness. Above them the sky blazed a clear, bright blue. Under the sudden warmth of the sun, rivulets of water ran from beneath the snow, making little brown channels across the heather.
The man ignored the mud beneath his boots and strode away up the road. The horses nickered after his retreating figure, then the coachman gave them the signal and the carriage lurched forward once again.
The gates of Dunraven Castle were closed. He thundered for some time at the huge oak doors that blocked the entrance. Eventually a wizened head peered over the battlements, and a frail fist was shaken at him.
“Get awa’ yon! Get awa’ frae the yetts! Vagabonds are nae welcome here!”
“For God’s sake, man,” his lordship said with the icy certainty of rank and privilege. “I am the Marquess of Belham. The Dowager Countess of Dunraven is not only expecting me, she is also my aunt. The present Lord Dunraven, moreover, has just become my ward. If you do not open these gates, I shall burn them down.”
The owner of the white hair peered down for a moment. The dark-visaged fellow below held a very business-like pistol in one hand. He produced a flask of powder from a pocket. Evidently he meant what he said.
“Dinna fash yoursel’!” the retainer said. “I’m an auld body. Be patient.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lord Belham faced Lady Dunraven.
She seemed to be of a similar age to her servant at the gate, but there was no mistaking that she came from a long line of blue blood. Dressed in black crepe, she sat on a chair that boasted the dimensions of a throne and glared up at her visitor with unrestrained animosity. Her lace cap crowned her head as brightly as the snows crowned the venerable peaks of Beinn Mhanach.
“So, Marquess,” she said. “You have come to claim the child.”
“May I sit, Countess?” Lord Belham asked. “I have traveled some distance.”
“Ha! To think that when my husband’s sister married your father, it was seen to be a grand match! It is not my custom to have black rakes and villains sit at my fireside.”
“Then I shall stand.”
He strode over to the peat fire that smoldered sullenly in the hearth and held out his hands. Firelight glinted on a large gold signet ring on his finger. The tiny gleam of warmth was almost entirely swallowed up by the cavernous, feudal chimney and the vast reaches of the stone-vaulted ceiling.
Silence settled like a shroud. Lord Belham stared up at the portrait over the fireplace. A young man smiled back above a small plaque, which identified him as Henry, fourth Earl of Dunraven.
“Do you think I have regrets that you once held a different opinion of me?” he said at last. “Fortunately, we need not tolerate each other for very long. It was Henry’s dying wish that the care of his little son come to me.”
“My son died too young,” Lady Dunraven snapped. “He did not mean it.”
“Perhaps not. Nevertheless, Henry put his instructions for young Robert’s guardianship in writing with the full blessing of the law. We are both bound by it.”
“How was my son to know that bad blood runs through your veins like the stink in the gutter of the wynd? I don’t doubt it was your infernal influence that undermined his health with drinking and bad women after his wife died—my only son! You led him to an early grave. Now, should anything happen to the child, you are heir to both lines, aren’t you?”