The Lass Wore Black (38 page)

He looked surprised at her ferocity. Did he think her mother’s heart changed to stone when he began his own life? On the contrary, it grew even larger, to accommodate children and in-laws.

She frowned at him. “I’m not disposed to like her if she’s going to break your heart,” she said. “So you’d better ensure that she doesn’t.”

He smiled, and she was transfixed by a mother’s pride.

Truly, how could any woman resist him?

T
he next time Catriona awoke, she was alone and it was night.

She turned her head slowly on the pillow, realizing that while she’d been right about the time of day, she was wrong about being alone.

Mark sat there in a straight-back chair, his head leaning against the wall. His eyes were closed and his face tired, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. His arms were crossed in front of him, his pose that of a man not relaxed so much as in contemplation.

What was he thinking about?

The left side of her chest was burning. She tried to raise her left hand to touch it, and to her surprise it obeyed her.

Mark’s hand grabbed hers before she could touch the odd heaviness there.

She turned her head to meet his gaze.

“It’s a bandage,” he said. “You were shot.”

Shot?
She’d have to think about that. She closed her eyes but could still see his blue-eyed gaze.

“Did you save me?” she asked without opening her eyes.

“Yes.”

She opened her eyes. “You sound arrogant.”

“Would you rather I hadn’t saved you?”

“No,” she said. She would have smiled, but it seemed like too much effort.

He settled back in the chair. “Don’t you want to know who shot you?”

She closed her eyes again. “No.”

“Because you already know.”

“Because I already know,” she said, forcing her eyes open.

“Who is Prender?”

“A lover,” she said. “A former lover.”

He nodded as if he’d known that, too.

“He wanted you dead, Catriona. Why?”

How did she answer that? Only with the truth, she suspected.

“When I was at Ballindair,” she said, speaking the words slowly, “I was desperate to find a way out. I didn’t want to be a maid. I didn’t want to be stuck at Ballindair for the rest of my life, dusting figurines or making beds.”

He didn’t interrupt her, merely sat there with his arms folded across his chest in the pose of judge and executioner. Surprisingly, she didn’t want him to lose what good opinion he had of her.

She could hear Jean’s voice.
You should have thought of that before you became Andrew’s mistress.

“Andrew was a guest at Ballindair,” she went on. “We became lovers.”

He didn’t say a word.

“He offered to put me up in London, buy me a house, give me everything I wanted.”

“Since you’re not in London, what happened?”

She smiled, remembering. “My brother-in-law gave me a choice,” she said. “Respectability or Andrew.”

“You didn’t choose Andrew.”

“But I’m no longer respectable,” she said, looking up at the ceiling.

“He tried to kill you in London, didn’t he? You knew, all along.”

She closed her eyes. She was so tired, but he needed to know.

“Yes,” she said. “Ever since Mr. Johnstone visited me.”

The coachman had come into her sickroom a few weeks after that accident, twisting his hat, his gaze on the floor.

She couldn’t blame him for not wishing to look at her. Her face had been covered in bandages, the weight of them reminding her of what had happened each time she moved.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” he’d said. “I wanted to know how you were doing.”

“I am alive, Mr. Johnstone,” she said slowly. “Beyond that, I can’t say.”

He waved his hand toward her bandages. “Will those be coming off soon, miss?”

She nodded. In truth, they were a blessing. She’d seen what she looked like before they’d applied the wrappings to her face.

“I wanted you to know, miss, that it weren’t my fault. The accident, I mean.”

What did he want her to say? Did he expect her to forgive him?

She remained silent.

“Maisie was a good horse, miss,” he said, his deep brown eyes the picture of grief. “She didn’t deserve to be shot like that.”

Surprise kept her staring at him.

“Who would deliberately shoot a horse, Mr. Johnstone?” she’d asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that, miss,” he said. “I think it was because whoever done it wanted something to happen.”

“Something like the carriage turning over?”

He nodded, his beefy face swaying with the gesture.

From that moment, she’d known.

Andrew would never have tolerated being rebuffed. He’d boasted that he was always the one to end a relationship. Yet she’d left him standing there with his hand outstretched, a declaration of love trembling on his lips.

Of course he wanted her dead.

She should have seen it in his eyes that night in London.

Did he simply want to kill her because he hated her? Or was his hatred a dog-in-the-manger attitude—if he couldn’t have her, he’d be damned if anyone else did?

“ ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,’ ” Mark quoted now.

She turned her head slowly on the pillow.

“Shall I bear the responsibility for his actions, then, Mark? Shall I take the blame?”

“Perhaps he was mad. Perhaps loving you did that to him. I can understand that.”

How could he try to heal her on one hand and wound her so quickly on the other?

Now, he would retract his offer of marriage. When he didn’t speak, she stared up at the ceiling, faintly lit by the oil lamp in the far corner.

“The gossip must be swirling about the woman shot in the middle of Edinburgh.”

“Why do you care so much about what other people say about you?”

She didn’t truly care about what other people thought. Some people would rebuff her, but others would welcome her with a generous heart.

She cared about what Jean thought, of course. The only other person whose opinion she truly valued was sitting a few feet away, and it might as well be a thousand miles.

“Go to sleep, Catriona,” he said, his voice gentle and soothing. “It’s late and you need your rest. We’ll talk later.”

She closed her eyes like a child, sinking into slumber with a relaxed and relieved sigh. They would talk later. He hadn’t marched out of the room. He hadn’t left her without a word. Instead, he sat beside her, lulling her into sleep, caring for her, and watching out after her.

Yet he thought that loving her would make him mad. Did he know that she loved him as well?

That, too, she needed to think about later.

Chapter 35

“T
here you are, awake,” a voice said.

Catriona opened her eyes to find a stranger peering into her face.

“I’m leaving but I wanted to have a talk with you first.”

She knew that voice. It had occupied several of her dreams.

“I’m Rhona Thorburn,” the woman said, taking the chair Mark had occupied earlier.

“Mark’s sister?”

The woman laughed. “I’m disposed to like you already,” she said. “I’m his mother.”

That was a surprise. Rhona Thorburn looked much too young. Her hair was as black as Mark’s and her eyes as clear a blue. Her face was on the long side, but she had a mole near her mouth on the right side, and a dimple on the other, as if nature wanted to balance out her features.

“Mark says you’re making great progress,” she said. “I’m afraid, however, that you’re going to have another scar.”

Catriona pressed her palm against her face. How could she have forgotten?

“What a pity such a thing had to happen to you,” Rhona Thorburn said. “Because of love, do you think?”

She shook her head. “Not love,” she said. “Obsession, perhaps, but nothing as fine as love.”

“Is love fine?” Rhona asked. “Love makes you do odd things, doesn’t it? Like right now. Here I am, sitting here talking to you, in direct violation of my son’s orders, because I’m worried about him.”

“Are you?”

Rhona nodded. “I am. You’re not simply a patient to him, you know. Are you lovers?”

She would never have imagined a conversation like this with anyone, let alone Mark’s mother.

“You think I shouldn’t have asked that question, don’t you?”

At her nod, Rhona smiled.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, as if you hold the answer to all his questions. Mark has always asked a great many questions, ever since he was a little boy. He’s never been content to accept things. He had to figure out why they were as they were.”

“I’ve never seen him look at me in that way, Mrs. Thorburn.”

“Actually, it’s Lady Serridain,” she said. “Mark’s father is Lord Serridain. His grandfather is the Earl of Caithnern. Didn’t you know?”

Was she asleep? This conversation had all the signs of a dream.

She shook her head.

Rhona shrugged. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Mark has only preferred one title, that of physician. He does love medicine. He gives it his single-minded dedication. I’ve always thought that if he felt that way about a woman, he’d be a happy man, but only if she felt the same.” Lady Serridain smiled brightly at her. “Do you?”

She doubted Mark felt that way about her after her revelations last night.

“I’m tired,” she said, pulling the sheet up to cover the worst of her scars. She closed her eyes, hoping the woman would go away.

“Very well,” Lady Serridain said, standing. “I do hope you’ll consider my words, Miss Cameron. My son is a good man. He needs someone who recognizes his worth.”

She opened her eyes. “You think I don’t?” she asked.

To her surprise, Mark’s mother smiled at her. “I have a feeling adventure follows you, my child. Mark tends to focus too much on medicine to the exclusion of all else. He needs a life of his own. I think you’d insist on it.”

“You presume too much,” she said. “There is no future for Mark and me.”

“I think you ignore too much, Miss Cameron. Or, are you willfully blind?” With that, Lady Serridain turned and left the room as regally as any queen.

W
hen Catriona had first come to live with Dina, a year and some months ago, no one knew that the woman would be pressed into service as a nurse not once, but on two separate occasions. This time Dina was proving just as superlative as she’d been in London.

Whenever Dina went to rest or eat, Artis was in attendance. The maid apologized whenever the two of them were alone. She was ready to forgive the girl anything if she’d only stop weeping.

“I can’t fault you for making mistakes, Artis,” she said. “Not when I’ve made enough of my own. Andrew is charming when he wishes to be. Shall we just forget it?”

The girl nodded as she blotted at her tears.

“Please, don’t apologize anymore,” she said. “It’s not necessary.”

She was healing quickly and soon could sit on the edge of the bed and dangle her feet over the side. The first day Catriona took a step, she nearly rejoiced, because it meant she would be able to leave Mark’s home.

Between Dina, Artis, and Sarah, she was feted, fed, and nursed. Who wouldn’t have healed with such care?

A fever in Old Town kept Mark away. So said Sarah, who changed her bandages every day. Catriona thought it might well have been an excuse not to see her. If that was the case, she couldn’t blame him.

Without being asked, Sarah conveyed that Mark looked tired, that he was working twenty hours a day, that he’d inquired after her health. When the worst of the fever passed, she said, he’d call upon her himself.

Catriona only smiled in response, but privately doubted she’d see him again.

“Do you think that people truly reap what they sow?” she asked Sarah one day.

She was sitting by the window when Sarah walked into the room, carrying clean linen.

“If you’re talking about that Mr. Prender,” Sarah said, “it looks like he will. The man will be lucky to escape hanging for what he did.”

She looked out the window feeling an odd compassion for Andrew.

“I didn’t treat him well,” she said.

Had she even thought of him after leaving his carriage? No, she’d been so fixated on reaching Edinburgh and the next stage of her life.

“Still, that’s not a reason to go around murdering people,” Sarah said, beginning to change the sheets. “If you were disappointed in love, would you kill the object of your affections?”

“I might want to,” she said. “If I was hurt enough.”

Sarah made a sound of disapproval. “Then I think it best if you don’t go being disappointed in love.”

Perhaps it was best if she didn’t think about love at all.

She wanted to go home so desperately that she begged Dina to bring something for her to wear.

At the older woman’s doubtful look, she’d said, “You can’t expect me to recuperate here forever. I think I would heal so much quicker in my own room.”

The plan was born and carried out a few days later. She said farewell to the sickroom and was helped down the stairs not by Mark, but by Dina and Sarah. Artis led the way, her gaze intent on the ground as if searching for any impediments to her progress. The stairs were difficult but navigable.