She waited while Frazer, who had evidently anticipated her order, maneuvered the tea tray into the room and placed it at her elbow on the table beside the gold-striped sofa. Mairi sat. Jeremy, who had been waiting for her to be seated first as a gentleman would, sat down opposite, his body angled toward her most attentively. Mairi’s lips twitched. Jeremy was so devoted. She had never been quite sure, though, whether he admired her or her fortune. Another face rose in her mind, strong, dark, not remotely a gentleman. She could feel the clasp of Jack’s fingers about her wrist, hear the low timbre of his voice and feel the touch of his lips. Her fingers shook. The teaspoon rattled against the side of the pot as she stirred.
“Is all well?” Jeremy asked.
“Of course.” Mairi could feel her face heating. She kept her gaze averted from him, making a little performance of pouring the tea, adding milk and passing it to him. “Is there any news of interest?” she asked. “I have been at Ardglen so long I have heard none of the latest gossip from the outside world.”
Jeremy’s face fell as though she had asked the one question he had been hoping to avoid.
“There isn’t a great deal of news,” he said evasively.
“Nothing from Edinburgh?” Mairi said.
Something moved and shifted in Jeremy’s eyes again. His gaze slid away from hers. “There’s nothing much to tell,” he muttered.
Well, that was odd. There was always news from Edinburgh, even in the summer when society was quiet and many people were at their country estates. Mairi waited, but Jeremy said nothing else, merely draining his cup in one gulp. He had ignored the cook’s homemade Abernethy biscuits, and now he looked as though he could not wait to leave.
It was the mention of gossip from Edinburgh that had wrought the change in him. Mairi felt a vague flicker of alarm. She wondered if the talk had been about her. Normally she was not so vain as to assume that everyone was talking about her, but taken together with Michael Innes’s threatening letter, it left her with a bitter taste of fear in her mouth.
Had Innes learned somehow of her night with Jack? Did everyone know?
She added more honey to her tea and drank it down, trying to calm the flutter of panic. The MacLeod heir had made such wild threats before. There was no reason to suppose that he had any more evidence now than he had had in the past.
She looked at Jeremy. He was staring evasively at the pattern on the Turkey carpet. The tips of his ears were bright pink and he looked as though he were sitting on pins.
He knew. Mairi was sure of it. And if Jeremy had heard the gossip, so must everyone else. Her heart did a little sickening skip. She would apologize to no one for the night that she had spent with Jack Rutherford, but she did not want it to be the talk of Edinburgh. That would be beyond embarrassing. As a widow she was allowed a certain latitude in her behavior, but it was demeaning to feel that her reputation was besmirched and that everyone was dissecting her behavior. It had never happened to her before.
But perhaps she should have thought of that before she had thrown caution to the winds and enjoyed a night of wild passion with Jack.
“More tea, Jeremy?” she asked, reaching for the pot. She could only hope that the gossip would die down while she was out of the city. Her absence would surely starve it of fuel. Or so she hoped.
“No, thank you.” Jeremy leaped to his feet. She had been right; he was suddenly desperate to leave. She put out a hand, caught his and held it tightly. He was too much of a gentleman to wrench it from her grip, so he stood there like an abashed schoolboy in the headmaster’s study.
“Jeremy,” Mairi said. “You would tell me if there was something I should know?”
He looked shifty. There was no other word for it. The expression sat uncomfortably on such a fair, open face.
“Are people talking about me?” Mairi asked.
Jeremy did not answer directly. “It’s nothing,” he said. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I can see...” He cast a look at her, quick and furtive. “I can see that it’s nonsense.”
“What is?” Mairi said, mystified.
This time Jeremy eased a finger around his collar. “It’s nothing,” he repeated. “All nonsense.”
Most unsatisfactory, but short of torturing the news out of him, Mairi knew she could not make him talk. She sighed. “Then I wish you a safe journey home, Jeremy, and I shall hope to see you soon.”
Jeremy looked relieved. His gaze softened as it rested on her. He took her hand again. “And I hope you have a good trip to Methven.” He hesitated. “Once the christening is past, though, I think that perhaps you should return to Edinburgh.”
Mairi raised her eyebrows. “Do you? I had thought to go to Noltland first.”
Jeremy’s jaw set stubbornly. “Edinburgh would be better. You need to be seen in society rather than appear to be hiding out in the country.”
He kissed her hand this time with rather more fervor than she was expecting. “Lady Mairi—” he said. There was a great deal of repressed emotion in his voice.
“Jeremy?” She hoped to goodness he was not going to make her a declaration. She did not wish to hurt his feelings, but she could never look on him as anything other than a friend. Guilt gripped her; she had leaned heavily on Jeremy after losing Archie. She hoped he had not interpreted her friendship as something stronger.
“Goodbye, dear Jeremy,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You know how much I value your friendship.”
Jeremy blushed endearingly and almost tripped over the edge of the Turkey rug on his way to the door. Stammering that he would see her in Edinburgh in a month’s time, he let himself out into the hall, where Mairi could hear Frazer furnishing him with his outdoor clothes.
Silence washed back in. Soon Frazer would return to collect the teacups and her maid, Jessie, would come to discuss packing for her trip. She should not have left it this late really, not when she would be away for at least four weeks. The journey itself would take more than a week; Methven was on the northwest coast and she was making a number of calls along the way.
A part of her would be sorry to leave Ardglen just as the roses were coming into bloom. They always reminded her of Archie. He had been her friend since childhood and she missed him very much. She wandered out onto the terrace again and walked slowly down the mossy steps and along the neat gravel path to where the rose garden slumbered within its mellow brick walls.
The other part of her, the part that shrank from the loneliness, wanted to leave for Methven directly, but the shadows were lengthening and the afternoon was slipping into evening. It would be better to wait until the morning and make an early start. Once the christening was over she would travel to Noltland—no matter what Jeremy advised—and then back to Edinburgh for the winter season and then to her father’s home at Forres for Christmas. She liked to have plans. She needed them. They gave structure to her life, a life that sometimes seemed dangerously empty no matter how much work there was associated with Archie’s inheritance. She had to keep moving, keep traveling, keep occupied, to drive out the darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
I
T
WAS
EVENING
by the time the traveling carriage drew into the courtyard of the Inverbeg Inn on the shores of Loch Lomond. Mairi had been on the road for twelve hours and was tired and travel-sore. She was glad to see the lanterns flaring at the inn door and to know that Frazer had booked ahead to secure her a room and a private parlor.
When the steward came hurrying to assist her from the carriage, however, it was clear that there was a problem.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, “but there is only one private parlor and it is already occupied.”
Mairi raised her eyebrows. “By whom?”
“By your husband, ma’am.” The landlord, a thin, nervous fellow with a sallow complexion and shifting gaze, had followed Frazer out and now stood at the bottom of the carriage steps. “He arrived but a half hour ago and asked for the private parlor. When I said it was reserved for you, he assured me there was no difficulty as he was your husband, traveling ahead of you on the road. He ordered the best food in the house.”
Her
husband.
Mairi had little trouble in guessing whom she would find in the private parlor. Jack Rutherford. She felt a prickle of antagonism along her skin. Jack had a damned nerve in assuming the role of her husband. He could only have done it to provoke her because she had refused his escort to Methven or because with even more breathtaking arrogance, he had assumed that they would resume their affair on the journey. Either way she was going to put him straight.
The landlord was looking from Mairi to Frazer’s set face. “I’m sorry, madam. If there is a problem—”
Frazer cut in. “There is no difficulty, landlord.” He turned to Mairi. “If you would be so good to wait in the carriage, madam, I will go and deal with the gentleman.”
Mairi gathered up her skirts in one hand and stepped down. “I’ll deal with him myself,” she said.
Frazer looked alarmed. “But, madam, this could be dangerous—”
Mairi smiled at him and patted his arm. She paid Frazer and his sons to protect her, but she wanted to confront Jack on her own.
“Rest easy,” she said. “I doubt there is any danger. You may wait out in the passage and I will call you if I need some strong-arm tactics.”
The landlord looked affronted and muttered that there was no call for fisticuffs and that he kept an orderly house. A word from Frazer and the gleam of silver coin quieted him and he led them inside.
The inn was blessedly warm and very noisy. From the taproom came a roar of voices. A fug of tobacco smoke wreathed beneath the door, and the smell of ale was strong, overlaid by the delicious scent of roasting meat. The landlord led Mairi down a narrow stone-flagged passageway whose whitewashed walls were decorated with a motley collection of dirks and claymores. They might come in useful if Jack proved difficult.
The door of the private parlor was ajar and there was the murmur of conversation from within. Mairi pushed the door wide.
Jack Rutherford was sitting in a big armchair, feet up on the table, toasting his boots before the fire. He had removed his jacket and loosened his stock, and in the golden firelight he looked tawny and lazily handsome and every inch a chaperone’s nightmare. A plate on the table by his side bore the remains of some venison pie. A serving girl with an extravagantly large bosom displayed to advantage in a thin and low-cut smock was topping up his glass. She was standing very close to him and giggling as she poured. Some of the liquid splashed onto Jack’s sleeve, and the girl started to dab ineffectually at his clothing with her apron, giggling all the harder. Jack was watching her through half-closed eyes that held a gleam of laughter.
The draught from the open door stirred the fire to hiss and spit and the candle flames to waver. Jack looked up. The laughter died from his eyes and they narrowed to an unnerving green stare. He swung his legs to the floor and got slowly to his feet, sketching a bow. Mairi supposed she should be grateful that he had the manners to do even that. She walked forward into the center of the room, stripping off her gloves and laying her reticule in the seat of the chair opposite Jack’s.
“Ah, my errant husband,” she said coldly. “Already looking to set up a mistress while you wait for me.”
Jack smiled, a wicked smile full of challenge. He sat down again. “If the welcome I got from you was warmer, sweetheart, maybe I would not need to look elsewhere.”
“You would always look elsewhere,” Mairi said. “You are a rake, sir. I wouldn’t look for fidelity from you. If I wanted that I would get a dog.” She tried to erase the bitterness from her tone, but she knew she was too late. Jack had heard it. His gaze had narrowed on her thoughtfully.
The serving wench now barreled forward to claim Jack’s attention. Quite evidently she preferred to be center stage.
“You didn’t tell me you were married,” the girl said accusingly. She was twisting her hands in her apron, a maneuver, Mairi was quick to see, that pulled the neck of her smock even more dangerously low. Jack, however, seemed to have no difficulty in keeping his gaze from the heaving bosoms that were on a level with his eyes. He was dangling his half-empty glass from his fingers and watching Mairi with a speculative expression. He did not take his gaze off her for a single moment.
“It slipped my mind,” he murmured.
“Strange,” Mairi said acidly, “when you had told the landlord only a half hour before that we were wed.”
“My tiresomely lax memory,” Jack said.
“It is a match for your tiresomely lax morals,” Mairi agreed sweetly. She glanced around the room with its deep chairs and velvet curtains drawn against the night, then back at Jack, lounging comfortably in his chair. “Let’s cut the pretense, sir,” she said. “Was the taproom too shabby for you? Or are your pockets to let? Was that why you decided to pretend we were married, so that I would pay your bills?”
“It was all for the pleasure of your company, my love,” Jack said. His eyes gleamed mockingly. “I enjoy your conversation so much. It is so very astringent.”
Mairi loosed her cloak and laid it over her arm. The room was hot and she was feeling more heated still beneath Jack’s cool green gaze. She felt as though he could strip away all the defences she had cultivated so carefully over the years. There was something keen and watchful in his eyes. He saw more than she wanted him to see.
She turned a shoulder to him and addressed the landlord instead.
“I would like some of your beef stew and a glass of wine, please.” She flicked a glance at the table. “I will finish this bottle my
husband
has started—” She shot Jack a look. “Unless he wishes to have it all to himself.”
“I am drinking water,” Jack said, “but you are welcome to share if your taste runs to it.”
“Water?” Mairi stared at him, her antagonism briefly forgotten. It was so incongruous. She would have had him down as a man who drank nothing but the best claret and brandy.
Jack shrugged. There was an element of discomfort in his demeanor. “Riding is thirsty work,” he said. He spoke dismissively and yet Mairi had the impression that there was a great deal more behind the words. More that he was not prepared to disclose. After a moment he raised his brows in quizzical enquiry and she blushed to realize she was still staring.
“Landlord,” she said hastily, “I would like to be taken to my room, please, and to have some hot water sent up for washing.” She paused as an unwelcome thought struck her and she spun around to face Jack again. “I trust you have not moved into my bedchamber as well, sir?”
A devilish light sprang up in Jack’s eyes. “It was tempting,” he drawled, his voice dropping several tones so that it rubbed across her senses like rough velvet, “but I was waiting for you to invite me, darling.”
A wholly inappropriate wave of heat washed over Mairi, rushing through her veins. Her knees weakened and she almost slumped into the armchair, remembering only at the last moment that they had company in the room and that she should be slapping his face—not falling into his arms.
“You’ll have a long wait, then,” she said. “I suggest that you should have your own chamber. Then there will at least be space in there for you and your vastly inflated opinion of yourself.” She gave him a cool little smile. She was proud of that smile. It was diametrically opposed to the way she was feeling inside.
“I would like you gone from here when I return, if you please,” she said. “Frazer—” She turned to the steward. “If you could escort Mr. Rutherford to the part of the inn that is farthest away from me...”
“No need for an escort,” Jack murmured. “I can find my own way.” He stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and slinging it over his shoulder. He sketched her a bow that had nothing of deference in it. “Your servant, madam.”
The landlord, scratching his head over the eccentric ways of the aristocracy, led Mairi up the inn’s wide stair to the landing and indicated the third room on the right. It was big and well appointed, and Mairi’s traveling bags were already standing waiting at the side of the bed. Her maid, Jessie, a small dark girl who was the youngest of Frazer’s ten children, was busy unpacking and shaking out a gown for the following day.
Mairi sat down abruptly on the side of the bed. She realized she was trembling a little and she was not quite sure why. She could deal with Jack Rutherford. She could deal with most things. That was one thing her marriage and its scandalous aftermath had taught her.
Jessie was chattering, which was a good thing because it distracted her. Unlike her father, Jessie was not in the least silent and austere. “It’s no’ that bad, this inn,” she said. “Leastways it’s clean and comfortable.”
“The clientele leaves something to be desired,” Mairi murmured.
“I hear there’s a fine gentleman staying.” Jessie was full of the news. “Cousin to Lord Methven. Rich and handsome, they say. The kitchen girls are all hot for him.”
“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear it,” Mairi said.
Jessie stood staring mistily into space, Mairi’s gown forgotten in her hands. “They say he made a fortune in India,” she said. “Trading in spices and the like.”
“It was Canada,” Mairi said, sighing. “Trading in timber.” She did not know much about Jack’s background, but she did know that he had made his first fortune before he was five and twenty and his second after he had returned to Scotland, importing luxury goods through the port of Leith.
“
They
say that he is a master swordsman and a dangerous rake—” Jessie rolled the word around her tongue with fervor. “And that he owns a huge estate over Glen Calder way.”
“All of which makes him nigh on irresistible,” Mairi said sarcastically. “Is that my yellow muslin you are crushing in your hands?”
Jessie looked down. “Och, yes. I’ll have it pressed for you before tomorrow, madam.”
“Thank you,” Mairi said.
By the time she went back down to the parlor, the fire had been built up and a glass of claret poured for her. The same maidservant, sulky this time, brought in a plate of beef stew. Of Jack Rutherford there was no sign. Mairi knew she should have been glad, and she was. But she also felt a tiny seed of disappointment, and it was this that disturbed her more than anything.
She did not linger after her meal but went out into the passageway intent on retiring to her chamber to read. Her head was a little fuzzy from tiredness and from the good red wine, and at the bottom of the stair she paused, clutching the newel post for support. The door to the taproom was open a crack and she peeped in. Through the fug of smoke and the crush of people, she could see Jack Rutherford. He was sitting at a table to the left of the fire, playing cribbage with three other men, a tankard on the table in front of him. Mairi wondered whether it contained more water or if Jack had moved on to something stronger.
As she watched, there was a roar from the crowd as Jack won the game. Several men slapped him on the back and he grinned, lifting the pewter cup to his lips. Mairi watched his throat move as swallowed, slamming the empty tankard down and calling for another round for everyone, largesse that was greeted with another roar of approval. There was a pile of silver coin by his elbow that was considerably larger than the pile at the side of any of the other players; as she watched Jack scooped up a handful of silver and passed it over to the landlord in return for the new tankards of ale that even now were overflowing onto the table. It was a raucous, good-humored gathering and Mairi felt a small pang of envy. Jack was welcomed into the easy camaraderie of the taproom and not just because of his money.
One of the inn servants passed her with a murmured word of apology; the taproom door creaked a little on its hinges and Jack looked up from his game. For a moment their eyes met; then a spark of mockery came into his and he raised his glass to her in mocking toast. Mairi shot away up the stairs, furious with herself for being caught staring.
She saw no more of Jack that night and fell asleep quickly, lulled by the quiet lap of the waves on the shore of the loch. By the time she arose for breakfast, Jack had already set out on his journey to Methven. Mr. Rutherford was riding, the serving girl said, with his luggage following on behind. It meant that he would be a great deal quicker than Mairi was on the road and she could only be grateful to be spared an endless procession of nights staying in the same inns as Jack was.
When Frazer came out to the carriage, he had a face as long and dark as a wet day in Edinburgh.
“What on earth is the matter?” Mairi asked, as the steward stowed his purse in the strongbox beneath her seat.
Frazer’s mouth turned down even farther. “The landlord would take no money for our stay,” he said. “The entire bill had already been settled.”
He handed her a note.
Mairi had never seen Jack Rutherford’s writing, but she had no difficulty now in identifying the careless black scrawl as his.
“A gentleman always pays,” the note ran.
Mairi dropped the letter on the seat beside her. She remembered taunting Jack the previous night when he had appropriated her parlor. She remembered she had said he wanted the comforts that only money could buy. She also remembered that he was one of the richest men in Scotland and had no need to beg those comforts from her.