Untouched Mistress

Guy smiled. ‘Aye, but a damnably attractive doxy.’ Indeed, she was quite the most beautiful woman Guy had seen, and Guy, Lord Varington, had seen a great many beautiful women.

‘All that hair, and that dress, and bare feet and those ankles.’

Guy put his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss. ‘Divine.’ He smiled. ‘But it is the sea we have to thank for her appearance. You judge her too soon, my friend. Perhaps she is the height of respectability.’

Weir snorted. ‘That is profoundly unlikely.’

Guy laughed. ‘I fear that her beauty has prejudiced you.’

‘Nonsense! Did any of the neighbours see her outside?’ He rubbed at his forehead with undisguised agitation. ‘Hell, they’re bound to draw only one conclusion.’

‘Which is?’ Guy raised an eyebrow.

Weir cleared his throat. ‘I don’t need to spell it out to you, of all people, Varington. She’ll have to be found some more suitable clothing.’

‘More is the pity.’

‘Will you not take this seriously?’ Weir poured himself a glass of whisky and topped up the one that Guy had previously emptied. ‘You must see my dilemma. I cannot have that sort of woman in this house, not with Annabel and the girls, nor can I ignore my Christian duty to help those in need. I cannot cast an unwell woman out into the street.’ He broke off to take a gulp of whisky and said, ‘Who is she anyway? Has she told you her name?’

Guy’s hesitation was small and unnoticeable. ‘We did not get to that.’ He had no real way of knowing, other than his gut instinct, of whether the words she had spoken upon the shore were the truth or just the ramblings of a confused and barely conscious mind.

‘One minute she’s out for the count in my guest bedchamber and the next she’s running down my blasted driveway dressed like a doxy!’ Weir’s mouth drew to a tight straight line. ‘Lord help us, Varington, what am I to do?’

‘Given her determination to leave Seamill Hall I do not think that you will have to do anything.’

‘I don’t like this one little bit. I think I should have the constable over to speak to her.’

Guy thought of the woman’s fear at the mention of the constable. ‘No need for that just yet.’ This was one mystery that Guy intended on solving by himself.

Weir took another sip of whisky. ‘And what the hell happened to her feet?’

‘She ran barefoot across the driveway, must be some glass still out there from the broken lantern. Never had a woman running away from me—well, not one outwith a bedchamber and that didn’t want chasing.’

Weir winced, but smiled all the same. ‘Dear God, Varington.’

‘Quite shocking,’ agreed Guy good-humouredly. ‘But there’s a first for everything.’

Weir’s eyes rolled. ‘I was referring to the woman’s feet.’

Guy laughed. ‘The cuts are not deep. She’ll recover quick enough.’

‘Good,’ said Weir. ‘The sooner that she’s gone, the better. It’s as I said before. There’s something about her that makes me uneasy and what with her trying to run off and our not even knowing who she is…’ Weir stopped and looked at Guy. ‘And she was trying to steal that blanket, was she not?’

‘She was indeed,’ said Guy, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Fortunately I managed to apprehend her before she could make off with the item.’

‘You see…’ Weir nodded sagely ‘…did I not say she could be a criminal?’ And then caught a glimpse of Guy’s face. ‘Will you not be serious? Would you see Annabel and the girls suffer over this woman?’

Guy knew his friend’s predisposition to worry and so he let something of the playful teasing drop away. ‘I shall make it my duty to ensure that neither Annabel nor the girls suffer in the slightest. As you said, the woman is here because of me and she is therefore my responsibility.’ His responsibility indeed, and for once Guy was being entirely serious.

Weir gave a nod. ‘Amen to that.’

‘Amen indeed,’ said Guy, and drained the whisky from his glass in a single gulp.

Sunlight lit the sky as Helena sat by the window, looking out at the stretch of sea that was calm and clear and so pale a blue as to be almost white, water that mirrored the colour of Lord Varington’s eyes. Seagulls called, circling in the sky and from the shore beyond came the rhythmic wash of waves against sand. She was dressed, as she had been since six o’clock that morning when she had given up watching the slow crawl of the hours on the clock.

She adjusted her legs, making herself more comfortable, and felt the press of the linen around her feet, bindings that Lord Varington had put in place. A wash of guilt swept over her, and yet she knew she could not allow guilt to stop her. Lord Varington would not understand. He did not know what it was to be so desperate that it was worth risking anything, even death, to escape. She thought of the words he had spoken yesterday, of his offer of help, of the kindness of his voice and the gentleness of his hands and the smile in his eyes, and Lord only knew how she wanted to believe him. Once upon a time she would have. Not now. Five years of Stephen had taught her better. And yet there was nothing of Stephen in Lord Varington.

She thought again of the tall dark-haired man, just as she had thought about him throughout the night. There was an attractiveness about him, both in his looks and his character. He was handsome and charming and flirtatious…and were it not for his interference she would not still be sitting here in Seamill Hall. Indeed, she reflected, she would never have been here in the first place; most likely she would have perished out upon the shore. It was a sobering thought.

She wondered why he was so concerned with her. The man Weir wasn’t. Mr Weir would not have chased her the length of the driveway in the pouring rain; judging from the look upon his face he would have let her go and been glad of it. But then Mr Weir hadn’t looked at her like he wanted her in his bed. Heaven help her, but she had troubles enough in her life without Lord Varington.

Helena sighed and let her gaze wander to the islands that lay beyond. St Vey was so clear that she could see the different shades of green and brown and purple grey, could see the glint of the sun picking out a brook that flowed over the rocks to the south, and in the north the dark outline of Dunleish Castle. It looked so close, close enough to swim the short stretch of sea that separated it from the mainland, as if she could reach across the water and touch it. St Vey lay only four miles off the coast, and that four miles had cost Agnes and Old Tam their lives. She felt the terrible stab of guilt and of grief. Helena stared for a long time at the island and the water and the sand, and mentally rehearsed her story.

She could go nowhere without owning an identity; that much was obvious. If she told the truth, her fate was sealed: a rapid return to Stephen and Dunleish Castle. She had thought long and hard about her problem, until, at last, in the wee small hours of the morning, came the seed of an idea. As a widow not from these parts, Helena could borrow some money, enough to finish what she had started, and leave Seamill Hall quite properly, without affecting anyone’s gentlemanly sensibilities. Just enough money to finish what she had started: escape to a place where Stephen would not find her.

Helena would speak to Mr Weir’s wife today, and make the necessary arrangements. She would have to lie to them all—to Mr Weir and his wife and to Lord Varington. She ran a hand down her skirt, smoothing out the creases as she stood to go down to breakfast, and remembered a time when she had thought dishonesty to be the most reprehensible of sins. Such naïvety; Stephen had changed that. And yet she found the prospect of lying so blatantly, particularly to Lord Varington, did not sit comfortably with her. Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. A few lies to a stranger were the least of her problems. But she heard the whisper of a little voice that this stranger had saved her life, and she remembered the touch of his hands upon her feet and the intensity in those pale eyes. She thrust the thoughts away, forced herself on. Survival was everything.

Chapter Three

The woman—Helena, as he suspected she was called—was already seated next to Weir’s wife, Annabel, at the breakfast table when Guy entered the sunlit dining room. She was wearing a drab black dress, clearly something borrowed from one of the servants as Annabel was so much shorter. Pity, when her own sea-shrunken attire was so very much more becoming. Still, even in the servant’s guise, there could be no mistaking that she bore herself with dignity. She was of average height and build. But Helena had a face that marked her out from other women, a face that any man would not easily forget: almond-shaped eyes, a small straight nose and lips that were ripe for kissing. Guy’s eyes lingered over the deep flame of her hair, the cream velvet of her skin and the smoky green of her eyes.

She was exuding an air of calm watchfulness, as if all her actions, every answer, was considered most carefully before given, as if she desired to reveal nothing of the real woman. Yet beneath her composure he thought that he could detect an undercurrent of tension.

‘Good morning, ladies.’

‘Guy!’ Annabel, all pretty and pink and blonde, gushed. ‘We thought you had quite slept in, didn’t we, Mary?’ She glanced at Helena.

Mary? He allowed only the mildest surprise to register upon his face as he turned to look at her. The harsh black of the woollen dress served only to heighten the pale perfection of her skin and the vivid colour of her hair, which had been caught up neatly in a chignon. She did not meet his eyes.

‘It seems that I have missed the introductions.’ He sat down at the table, poured himself some coffee and looked expectantly at the woman who it now seemed was calling herself Mary.

‘Oh, Guy,’ said Annabel. ‘Poor dear Mary has suffered so much—’

‘Perhaps,’ interrupted Weir, ‘Mrs McLelland would be kind enough to recount her story again for Lord Varington? If it is not too much trouble, that is.’

Guy noticed how there was nothing of emotion upon her face, that she wore the same mask-like expression he had watched her don on Weir’s entry to the gunroom yesterday.

‘It would be no trouble at all,’ she said.

Guy sat back, sipped his coffee and waited.

Helena took a deep breath and ignored the way her stomach was beginning to churn. It had not seemed so bad telling her lies to Mr and Mrs Weir alone. It was not something that she would have chosen to do, but needs must, and Helena’s situation was desperate. But now that Lord Varington was sitting across the table, watching her with those pale eyes of his, her determination felt shaken. She forced herself to begin the story that she had spent the hours of the night rehearsing.

‘My name is Mary McLelland and I am from Islay.’ By choosing an island of the Inner Hebrides she was effectively ensuring that any trace that they might set upon her would be slow, so slow that by the time the results of any investigation arrived Mary McLelland would have long fled Scotland. She could see that Lord Varington was still watching her. She forced herself to stay focused, shifted her gaze to where the sunlight reflected upon the silver jug of cream set just beyond her plate. ‘I am the widow of James McLelland, and I am travelling to London to stay with my aunt.’

‘How came you to be washed upon the shore?’ asked Lord Varington.

‘A local boatman from the island agreed to take me on the first leg of my journey, for a fee, of course. When first we started out, the weather was cold and damp, but with little wind. Indeed, the sea was remarkably calm, but that soon changed during the sailing.’ That bit at least was true, and so was the rest of what she had not yet told the Weirs. ‘First the wind fetched up and then the rain began. I have never seen rain of its like. All around us the sea grew wilder and higher, tossing us from wave to wave as if we were a child’s plaything, until the lanterns were lost, and we were clinging to the boat for dear life.’