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John Murray would have slid to the floor in a boneless heap if Evan MacGregor hadn’t caught his elbow and forearm under the man’s sinking chest and pressed him firmly back into the upright barber’s chair.
Maxtone stepped on the levers, tilting the chair. Between the trio of strong men, they managed to get Tullie firmly secured in his tilted seat.
With his mouth open and his jaw slack, Tullie presented the most ungraceful pose for a grown man that Elizabeth had ever seen in her life. Even so, her pride in her brother’s courage went up another notch.
Not one shout against the pain had escaped his lips. He’d chatted through the whole ordeal as if his pain were of no import. Elizabeth knew from her own haunting experiences that the truth was, the human body could only endure so much before one’s courage dwindled to nothing in the face of body-racking pain.
She didn’t think John’s loss of consciousness was taken as a sign of weakness by any person in the room with him.
His muscular arms dangled limp over the sides of his chair. A steady rivulet of blood cascaded out of the deep surgical cut and dripped on the oak floor.
Amalia took advantage of Tullie’s loss of consciousness to smooth an errant lock of damp hair from his brow. She bent and placed a sisterly kiss on his cheek. “There, there, my bra’ laddie, sleep while you may.”
While the surgeon and Tullie’s manservant reached for towels to begin mopping up, Evan focused his full attention on Elizabeth. His black brows twisted, and those censorious eyes of his became achingly more intimate. He said pointedly, “Well, then?”
“Well, then, what?” Elizabeth bristled, not liking his peremptory tone, or his blasted appraising look, either! Again he had made her acutely aware that she was barefoot and dressed only in thin gown and wrapper. Hardly suitable attire for a confrontation with a renowned rake.
“Which of you is going to sew Tullie up? That’s what.” Evan cast a dismissive look at Elizabeth, and settled on Amaha.
“Och, nooo... Not me!” Amalia protested. “My hands are shaking so bad, I can’t thread a needle, much less poke it in a man’s flesh. I’ve never done such a thing.”
“I’ll do it.” Elizabeth contradicted all her instincts, which demanded she fade quietly into the woodwork now. Heedless of her revulsion for blood and her deep-seated fear of physical pain, she stepped forward and briskly washed her hands at the basin on John’s marble-topped commode. She was one Murray who would die before admitting a weakness to a MacGregor.
Her hands were nowhere near as steady as she wished they could be. The real truth was, she’d never poked a needle into living flesh, either. But she’d go gladly to hell and back before granting that truth to Evan.
Not twenty-four years old, and the man had already made a legend of himself by his valor in battle. Elizabeth had heard her uncle, Colonel Thomas Graham, rattle off chapter and verse throughout the entire Christmas holiday about the adventures of the Grey Breeks, his privately recruited company of Royal Highlanders. The MacGregor had figured largely in nearly every harrowing tale of the ongoing battles with the French on the Peninsula.
But Uncle Thomas had made no mention of having brought his entire company back to England. She’d pose some pointed questions of her own on the morrow, when her father and Thomas Graham arrived from the countryside.
Pretending to a calm she was far from feeling, Elizabeth took needle and thread in hand and lifted the towel draped across her brother’s surgical wound.
Butter’s stubby fingers pressed the bloody flesh together, showing her where to begin. Elizabeth glanced at Butter’s face. His pale blue eyes revealed concern for her brother. Elizabeth vowed to make the neatest stitches she could.
“Had some experience at this, have you, Corporal Butter?” she asked.
“Och, aye, an’ then some. Though I daresay I’ve spent more time sewing up foolish Sassenachs than I have the loyal clansmen that remain. Yer doing fine, lassie. The bullet went in clean. Stuck in the gristle, not the bone. He’ll heal quick enough. I’ve seen worse. Cannonade, now that makes a mess of a man.”
“I can well imagine,” Elizabeth added dryly. She blinked her eyes to clear them, and concentrated on making small, neat stitches and tying firm knots in the wet boiled thread. An even twenty saw the large incision firmly shut.
Finished, Elizabeth stepped aside so that Butter could apply a liberal washing with carbolic and a clean dressing. She put the needle aside and washed her hands in hot water.
“Good work, Izzy.” MacGregor splashed a healthy tot of whiskey in a clean glass and extended the drink to Elizabeth as she folded the towel she’d used to dry her hands.
“My name is Elizabeth, and I never touch whiskey, thank you.” Elizabeth had lived long enough to know that whiskey had ruined more good men and their families that she cared to count.
“Drink it. It will do you good,” MacGregor insisted.
“Aye, think you so? How much liquor had those men in the mob consumed this afternoon? It doesn’t take all that much to make good men forget common sense, Christian duty and the virtue of prudence. You’ve just come from witnessing the results of unlimited excess, I would say. So I’ll pass, thank you.”
“Oomph.” Evan MacGregor straightened to his full height. Elizabeth feared that his six feet and three inches somehow went much further than it should in intimidating her. “You always did have a tongue that was sharper than a blade honed on a razor strop, Izzy. I see you have added fastidiousness and sanctimoniousness to your store of unpleasant virtues, as well. Suit yourself. Hie yourself back to bed, and see how well you sleep with the smell of blood in your nose. It’s no’ a pleasant task.”
He set the glass down, untouched by her, and moved away. The marquess’s bandage was in place. Dismissing the two other men with a wave of his hand, Evan MacGregor slid his arms under John Murray’s back and hoisted him out of his chair. He strode across the room, bearing Murray’s twelve stone as if it were six, and put the marquess in his bed.
“I believe I can manage from here, milord,” Tullie’s valet said gratefully.
“I’m certain you can,” MacGregor replied. Butter had already taken up their jackets, gloves and hats. “I’ll see myself out. Send word immediately if His Grace has any further difficulties. I’ll be at my barracks, if he or the duke has need of me.”
Silently Elizabeth followed MacGregor and his man to the front door. Evan moved down the staircase with resolute purpose, smashing his diced cap down on his head. Were his spine forced to be any more erect, it would have shattered into brittle pieces with each determined step.
Not once did Evan MacGregor look back at Lady Elizabeth Murray. Even though he knew she followed him down the stairs, and saw her reflection in the remarkable two-story bank of glass windows that graced the rotunda foyer of the town house. Even though his own batman, Corporal Butter, paused at the door to touch the rim of his cap in a salute, and audibly bid Lady Elizabeth, Godspeed and good-night.
Elizabeth deliberately doused the flow of gas to the experimental lights fronting her father’s town house. That action cast their portion of Grosvenor into fog-shrouded darkness. She pressed the door firmly shut and locked it. She remained at the glass-banked door, peering out longingly after Evan until she could no longer see the man striding so purposefully into the night.
There were so many questions she could have asked...so many bits and pieces of news she could have told him... but she’d kept silent. And so had he.
She closed her eyes, feeling the chill of the night seep into her skin where her forehead rested on the windowpane. Mayhap it was better this way...better that nothing be said, that none of the old feelings of the past be stirred up and brought out into the open.
The big house surrounding her seemed to settle at once into its normal late-hour silence. She could hear the sonorous ticking of the grandfather clock and smell the damp that had come in with the fog, mixing with the familiar scents of her father’s pipe tobacco and Aunt Nicky’s talc.
She took a deep, calming breath and ordered the racketing clatter of her heart to cease. Calm, quiet and peace were all that counted in this world. Decorum and appearances mattered, not desire and impulse. She had to dig very deep inside herself to find the resolve she needed to put this unexpected meeting with Evan MacGregor in its place. When she found it, she vowed with a vengeance that she wouldn’t think about Evan MacGregor.
By sheer force of will, Elizabeth suppressed all curiosity regarding MacGregor’s unexplained appearance in London. What Evan MacGregor chose to do with his life was his business.
Elizabeth repeated that fact over and over again. The MacGregor wasn’t worthy of a single minute of her thoughts, and she wouldn’t give him that. After all, she was a Murray, and every soul in Scotland knew there was no one more determined and strong-willed than a Murray.
Evan MacGregor cursed loudly and fluently as he threw off his jacket and dropped his pistols on the rude table serving as his writing desk in his quarters.
He already hated being assigned duty in London. Blast Colonel Graham’s orders to hell and back! The moment his superior returned from his holiday, Evan vowed, he’d demand a transfer back to the Continent. Hell! He’d take six months in Newcastle working with raw conscripts over six months in London recruiting and grooming officers for the king’s army.
Damn Elizabeth Murray! Why couldn’t she stay home in Dunkeld, where the blasted chit belonged? And if he couldn’t have that, why hadn’t the divine providence that moved all things turned her into a gross, shapeless, cow-eyed sow?
He’d escaped her siren’s wiles five years ago, when she was naught more than a willful, ungrateful, beautiful spoiled brat. What was he to do now that she’d turned into an exceedingly clever and lovely woman of the world?
“Merciful heavens!” Krissy wagged her head and clucked her tongue as Lady Elizabeth quietly shut the door of the adjoining nursery. “There now. Did I not tell you wee Robbie never fluttered a lash through the whole commotion?”
“So you did,” Elizabeth said promptly. “But I do like to see that for myself.”
“Humph.” Krissy grunted in response.
Lady Elizabeth was like that, always putting four-year-old Master Robbie’s welfare before her own, as if the sweet little boy were her very own bairn. Not that Krissy could fault her lady for that, especially since Robbie had taken his grandam’s death so hard. The poor little mite had spoken nary a word in the three months since auld Abigail Drummond had been put in the ground. Lady Elizabeth had every right to be worried about him.
“Och, what a night of nights this has been. Come, milady, best you get to bed. God save us, we should all drop off to sleep with the ease and peace of a bairn.”
Krissy bustled across Lady Elizabeth’s boudoir to fluff the pillows on her lady’s tester bed, straighten the rumpled coverlet and smooth the sheets. “Do you think Tullie will be able to rest at all, milady? What if the watch should come asking questions? Should I run and tell Mr. Keyes the marquess is indisposed?”
“No. Amalia will see to that. As to Tullie’s condition, I’d warrant he’s sleeping better than we are at the moment,” Elizabeth wisely answered.
“Tut-tut, you just climb up into bed and drink this warm milk I heated for you. It will soothe you right down,” Krissy urged. “I canna help noticing you dinna like talking about the MacGregor. Is there summat between the two of you, then?”
“Not that I can think of.” Elizabeth evaded a more direct answer to the loyal servant who had been with her for the past three years.
She sat motionless on the side of the bed and stared at the closed door of the nursery—the nursery that everyone in the household probably thought housed a much-loved by-blow of His Grace the duke of Atholl. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Krissy handed her the cup of heated milk, grinning. “I dinna mind admitting the MacGregor’s no strain on the eyes, is he, now?”
“If you say so.” Elizabeth remained noncommittal, all the while silently praying Krissy would stop. Enough was enough.
“Och, he’s verra nice to look upon.” Krissy happily voiced that opinion. “He appears to know you well, Lady Elizabeth...I mean everyone. Seems I remember he was often about years ago... at the clan gatherings, weddings and games and such. Am I right?”
“Oh...aye.” Elizabeth sighed. She finished the drink and put the cup and saucer on her nightstand, tucked her legs under the covers and said firmly, “Go to bed, Krissy. Get some sleep.”
“Aye, well, good night again, Lady Elizabeth. I’ll try not to make a nuisance of myself. Pleasant dreams.”
Not likely, Elizabeth thought grimly as Krissy bustled to the nursery door.
The servant paused with her hand on the doorknob, remembering something else. “Och! What time must I wake you up?”
“Seven at the latest, if I am to dress, have breakfast and make it to church on time.” Elizabeth doused the light beside her bed.
The next suggestion came through the dark. “Milady, I could tell the dowager you’re ill...or something...so you could sleep in a wee bit longer.”
“Absolutely not,” Elizabeth answered firmly. “I’d need gory, bleeding wounds more serious than Tullie’s to be excused from attending church with the dowager.”
“Well. It was just a thought. Good night, then.”
The room became quiet at last. So long as Elizabeth didn’t count the steady ticking of her clock, and the ever-audible drip of London’s abysmal wet fog, gathering on the upper cornice of the bay windows and plopping noisily onto the stone window sills.
Judging by the soft snores that soon came from the adjoining room, Krissy, who hadn’t a serious thought in her head, had dropped off to sleep in the blink of an eye. Not so Elizabeth.
But then, the good and the righteous always slept in peace and tranquillity, while the wicked and the damned were doomed to spend eons atoning for their sins. Elizabeth accepted that as a merciful God’s justice.
She didn’t deserve to sleep with the ease of an innocent like Krissy. Elizabeth’s soul was nowhere near as pure, and her heart was ten times more jaded.
People who lived a lie and kept dark secrets were never blessed with peace in the dead of night. Elizabeth’s thoughts drifted far, far away from this bed in her father’s London town house...to a tiny room in a Scottish border town. A room where the wet had penetrated the thatch time after time, leaving countless stains on sour whitewashed walls.
Time mercifully blotted out much of her memory. Sheer force of will obliterated details and sensations she never wanted to revive. But no matter how strong a discipline she forced on her thoughts, certain things remained fresh, clear and vivid.
The smell of a greasy quilt. The thick taste of a heavy fog that lingered over the village at high noon—flavored with the aroma of haggis and cabbage. The sound of buttons snapping their threads as hasty, too-eager hands tore a sark apart and cast it to the shadows. The heat and texture of Evan’s hands spreading across Elizabeth’s belly and cupping her breasts.
No, try as she might to force will to overcome and direct all memory, Elizabeth Murray would never, ever forget Gretna Green, and the day she’d eloped and married Evan MacGregor — May 28, 1802. Only weeks after she’d tossed propriety aside and danced with her childhood sweetheart at Bell’s Wynd.
That day had left unalterable, indelible impressions. Never mind the fact that only three living souls knew of that truth—Master Paisley, who had married them, Evan, and herself—the truth was and always would be unforgettable.
Elizabeth blinked dry eyes and glared at the shut door, wondering what in heaven’s name she would do now. How would she get through tomorrow? She had asked herself that question every night since May of 1802. All the brash and reckless courage of youth had failed her then, turned her into a sniveling, terrified coward once the deed was done.
Every day of her life since, she’d fought with herself to have the strength and fortitude to go forward, in spite of the dishonor and shame she had brought on herself and Evan, and might have brought on both their families.
In the beginning, that had only been for herself — so that she could continue to hold her head up and look her father and her brothers and sisters in the eye.
Living a lie all the while. Denying the truth. Until it was too late to rectify the wrong that had been done by any honorable means. Until it was no longer possible to hide the ever-evident truth that she was carrying a child inside her.
By then it had been way, way too late to own up to the truth. Evan had gone and done the unthinkable, joined the army and been shipped off to war. Alone, Elizabeth couldn’t find the courage to admit what she’d done.
But tonight, the cards in the hand she’d been dealt had turned. Evan had come back. For the first time in almost six years, Elizabeth couldn’t guess what suit the next trump was going to be, and she didn’t know what her next move should or could be.
God save me, she thought, and closed her dry, aching eyes. Willpower and determination would get her through. It had to. It had failed her only once in her life, that dreadful day—May 28, so long, long ago. Dear God, she prayed, please, don’t let Evan discover Robbie. Let me keep my secrets, let me keep my son.
Chapter Four
Sunday was bitterly cold from start to finish. A little weather never kept the duke of Atholl’s hardy ladies housebound on the Sabbath — not when the dowager devoted a Sunday to pursuing the Lord’s work.
They began with services at nearby Saint Mark’s, which were followed by the annual ladies’ guild winter bazaar, a monstrous undertaking that took up the balance of the cold and dreary afternoon. Throughout the whole long, cold afternoon Elizabeth sold rose cuttings to enhance next summer’s gardens. The bazaar made a long day longer.
Elizabeth couldn’t wait to get home and exchange her somber, very damp walking dress and pelisse for a warm gown of velvet and lace. She spent an hour in the nursery telling stories to Robbie in another effort to elicit whole sentences from her monosyllabic son. Since his nanny’s sudden death in October, Robbie had all but quit speaking entirely.
Elizabeth tucked her arm around Robbie’s wee shoulders, drawing him close. “How many beans did Jack get from the peddler, Robbie?”
“Dunno.” Robbie’s shoulders lifted under the light compression of Elizabeth’s loving arm. His thick cap of dark curls brushed against her cheek as he turned his face toward the windows overlooking the park.
“You don’t know?” Elizabeth asked, cognizant of her inner fear that there might be something wrong with her beautiful, perfect son.
It was bad enough that she was not allowed to claim him as her own, to openly act or be his mother. Her father’s acceptance and support of the child came with the stricture that appearances must be kept up.
Elizabeth’s father had guessed her incipient condition before Elizabeth, in her youthful ignorance, discerned it herself. Robbie had been born at Port-a-shee, on the Isle of Man, on March 4, 1803, and legally named an orphan and a ward of her father, under his privilege as Lord Strange, lord of the Isle of Man.
For the past four years, Elizabeth had engaged in an ongoing battle to spend as much time with her son as her father would allow. Considering the circumstances of Robbie’s birth, she was fortunate to have any contact with Robbie at all, and she knew that. Hence, she had always showered the child with loving attention every chance she got. That wasn’t enough for her. She feared her limited concern wasn’t enough for the child, either.
Ever restless, Robbie wiggled off the settee to dart across the room to his low shelf of toys and books. He pulled out book after book, discarding one for the next, until he came to a well-worn favorite, a volume of illustrated fairy tales. His cherubic face was as somber as a choirboy’s as he leafed through the pages, searching for the story of the giant and the beanstalk.
When he found the picture of Jack trading his mother’s cow for three beans, he popped back onto his sturdy feet, ran across the room and laid the open book on Elizabeth’s lap. She rumpled his hair and smiled.
“Ah, I see. You brought me the picture. How many beans is that? Do you know?”
Robbie tilted his face up to hers and sighed, deep and long. He held up four fingers, which was wrong, but he said, “Three,” which was correct.
“That’s right, three beans.” Elizabeth smiled as she tucked his first finger under the tight compression of his thumb, making his gesture match his words. “Three beans and one, two, three, four, five fingers. Very good, Robbie.”
Unconcerned with numbers, he whirled away and sat in the midst of his toy soldiers and castle blocks. In the blink of an eye, the child was engrossed in his toys and oblivious of Elizabeth’s presence.
Fascinated, as always, by everything Robbie did, Elizabeth watched him build a new wall and line a squadron of tin soldiers on its rim, then flop onto his belly to maneuver the pieces.
The door to the nursery opened, and Krissy bustled in, bringing Robbie’s supper on a tray. “Well, and himself does love the wee soldiers Colonel Graham gave him, doesn’t he? Good eve, milady. I’ve brought your supper, Master Robert. Come. Up to the table with you.”
Elizabeth stood. “Robbie, I’m going to go now. I have to speak to His Grace.”
“’Bye,” Robbie grunted, engrossed in the toys, oblivious of both Elizabeth and the servant setting up his supper on the nursery table.
Krissy cast an indulgent smile at Elizabeth that, in effect, excused the child’s bad manners. Elizabeth made her own allowances for Robbie’s not standing when she did. He was so young, a baby still in the nursery. Manners would come in time.
