One Night with the Laird

“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

IT 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.”