Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction

The house Alec had drawn looked familiar, but then England was dotted with large homes in similar styles as men who made fortunes around the world built mansions for themselves and their families. Celia’s mother sneered at these upstarts, men of no title or background, basing their dynasties on nothing but money. Celia’s father, more pragmatic, said it was the times they lived in, and if these fellows were lucky enough to make a packet, they ought to enjoy it. Celia’s mother only sniffed and condemned him with a glance.

  “Who lives in the houses?” she asked.

  “This one is rented out by Sir Amos Westwood, but I don’t know about the others,” Alec said. “I am not acquainted with all the aristos in England.”

  “But I am,” Celia said eagerly. “If you show me these houses, I can tell you who lives there or nearby and whether they are likely to have Scottish soldiers kept prisoner in their outbuildings.”

  “Lady Flora also knows them,” Alec pointed out. “I’d rather risk her jaunting about the countryside, not you. Or Mrs. Reynolds, whom Lady Flora will likely send in her place.”

  “Bugger that,” Celia said decidedly.

  Alec’s eyes widened, then a sparkle lit their depths.

  Josette burst out laughing. “You’ve shocked him, my dear. I never thought it possible to shock a Mackenzie.”

  Celia shrugged, but she felt amused triumph. “My brother is a soldier. He taught me all sorts of bad words. I’ll not sit here and embroider, Alec Mackenzie, while you risk your neck poking around places guarded by British soldiers. In fact, I ought to go scouting with Mrs. Reynolds while you stay well out of sight. If we are caught, the guards will roll their eyes and send us two lost gentle-born ladies on their way. You would be clapped in chains the moment you opened your mouth.”

  Josette continued to chuckle. “She has a point, my friend.”

  Alec’s brows came down. “Like hell I’m letting ye rush about the countryside on your own. Mrs. Reynolds is a competent woman, but every highwayman from here to the coast will sniff out a fine carriage with only two ladies inside.”

  “You could send your man, Padruig, to protect us. I don’t believe highwaymen would bother him.”

  “If I can find him, if Gair will spare him, and if I didn’t think Gair would gouge me for every shilling I had. No, if you’re determined then I and my pistol are accompanying you, wife.”

  Celia lifted her coffee cup, pleased. “That is settled then.”

  Alec studied the ceiling. “May God grant me patience. You are right, lass, that ye’ll know the countryside and the people living in it better than I. But ye stay in the coach, no matter what we find, no matter what I decide to do. Agreed?”

  “I doubt rushing about through wet fields would be good for my constitution,” Celia said. “And Mrs. Reynolds is always good company. Do you know, she’s been to China? How exciting.”

  Josette began to laugh again as Alec looked pained. Josette beamed at Celia, which made her lovely face even more beautiful. “I do believe you will be very good for him, my dear.”

  Alec took Celia upstairs to spend the next hour with Jenny. Josette had sent off a lad to deliver the letter to Celia’s father, and Alec sent a verbal message by a man he knew and trusted to Lady Flora, telling her he wanted to further explore country houses. She’d know what he meant. Now to wait for her response.

  Jenny sang out when she saw Alec, squirmed down from her chair, and took two toddling steps toward him. Alec caught her in his arms and lifted her high.

  Jenny clung to him and pressed a very wet kiss to his cheek, then she pushed from him and launched herself at Celia.

  Where did tiny children come by such strength? Jenny was out of his arms before he could stop her, and Celia staggered as she caught the babe.

  Celia laughed, her face lighting. She didn’t seem to mind the drool coming out of Jenny’s happy mouth to stain her fichu, or the way Jenny burrowed into Celia’s shoulder, her tiny hands clenching the finely woven wool of Celia’s gown.

  Sally hovered nearby with a distressed expression, but Celia only held Jenny more securely and looked down at her with wonder. “Good afternoon, little one,” she said, her voice holding a tenderness Alec hadn’t heard in it before. “I’m your new Mama.”

  Jenny cooed, pleased. When Celia looked at Alec, her eyes were shining with tears.

  Alec drew both Celia and his daughter into the circle of his arms, a pain that had been lodged in his heart for a long while easing.

  The coachman who’d met them outside the gardens at Vauxhall halted at Josette’s door an hour later. Celia, wrapped in a dun-colored cloak, her hair covered by a broad-brimmed hat, took Alec’s hand to let him help her in. He sprang up behind her, wearing Mr. Finn’s brown, rather worn frock coat and breeches she’d first seen him in, and boots rather than stockings and shoes.

  With his hair tied back in a simple tail and a tricorn pulled low over his forehead, Alec looked like any other man hurrying about London on a weekday morning. Alec and Celia might be a plain middle-class husband and wife running errands, deciding what sort of furniture they’d like for their house, and what food to buy for the baby.

  It was a strange sensation, being like everyone else. Celia had been shut away in a cushioned world of privilege her entire life, servants at her beck and call to bring her anything she wished. This could have turned her into a horrible, spoiled shrew, but the example of her haughty mother had made her shrink from it. Celia had aimed to be more like her father, conscious of his own position but also conscious of his duty to use that position to benefit others.

  Alec took the seat next to her, his warmth and strength bolstering. Celia flushed, remembering the cries she hadn’t been able to suppress when he’d loved her, but she leaned against him, liking that she could.

  Alec threaded his fingers through hers and held her hand on his lap, an intimate gesture of a lover. Fire spread through her.

  “I know why Josette is anxious for you to find your brother,” Celia said to keep from making a fool of herself and reaching for him. “She seems quite fond of Will. More puzzling is why Lady Flora decided to help you. It is a most curious thing for her to do.”

  Alec shook his head even as he stroked the backs of her gloved fingers. “I don’t know, love. Lady Flora was one of Will’s contacts in London. I’d say she was his lover, except …”

  “Except that she and Mrs. Reynolds are lovers.” Celia stated this in a matter-of-fact tone, then laughed when Alec stared at her. “Oh dear, I do believe I’ve shocked you again, Mr. Finn.”

  Chapter 21

  Alec continued to stare as Celia collapsed into laughter. “You must be very prim and proper in Scotland,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Everyone knows about Lady Flora. We say nothing, of course, but everyone knows.”

  Something sparked in his eyes. “Lass, if ye think Highlanders are prim and proper, prepare yourself for a shock. Even the most Calvinist of them set aside their prudery when there’s bairns to be made. But I thought you Englishwomen had cold blood and no notion of what went on outside a drawing room.”

  “Then you have not been to the same drawing rooms I have.” Celia tilted her head back to study him from under her hat. “I wasn’t meant to see, but even my mother’s salons have turned bawdy when ladies and gentlemen sneak away to play. Unbeknownst to my mother, of course. She’d have exposed them and thrown them out.”

  “I’m sorry your mum wasn’t warmer to ye,” Alec said in a soft voice. “She has such a fine daughter—I don’t know how she could treat you so.”

  “I wish I could say I was well rid of her.” Celia twined her gloved fingers more tightly through his. “And I know, with my head, that I am. But she’s my mother. I only ever wanted to please her.”

  “As is natural. But she abused that trust. You might forgive her, but I won’t.”

  Celia made a faint shrug. “I am a duke’s daughter. I was to marry not for my own happiness but to strengthen the family, and the dynasty. My aunt—my father??
?s sister—understood this, because of course she was a duke’s daughter as well. That’s why she left me the legacy.”

  “Which I won’t touch,” Alec said, the words firm. “It’s yours, and I’ll have my man of business make sure it remains yours. Then you’ll have something if I’m arrested and dragged away.”

  Celia shivered, clasping his hand as though she’d be strong enough to prevent a soldier taking him. “Please don’t talk like that.”

  “’Tis only practical. I promised to endow you with all my worldly goods, remember? And I have plenty of them, so you keep your legacy and do with it what you please.”

  Celia snuggled into his side. “Well, if Scotsmen don’t have prudery, I know one thing you do have.”

  “What’s that?” Alec asked in sudden suspicion.

  “Pride.”

  Alec huffed a laugh. “You’re right about that, lass. And I’m the least proud of the family. No one can match me da’, unless it’s Malcolm—the Runt is full of himself. Or Will …” He trailed off.

  “We’ll find him,” Celia said.

  She wished she could promise that. But life was never certain, war was savage, and the aftermath could be worse.

  “You ought to have told me about him right away,” she continued in a gentler tone. “I could have made discreet inquiries from the first day.”

  Alec’s growl returned. “And I know I’ll be arguing about this with ye the rest of my days. I didn’t know if I could trust ye, it’s dangerous, and even now, I don’t want you in it.”

  “You’ve made that very clear.” Celia rubbed his shoulder then rested her cheek on it. “But I believe that whatever you are in from now on, Alec, I’ll be there too.”

  “Even in shite?” Alec asked, his voice vibrating her.

  “I’ll wear stout boots.”

  His laugh sounded through the carriage. Alec turned her face up to him and pushed away the distancing hat. “I am right that you’ve stolen my heart.”

  He kissed her, thumbs at the corners of her mouth opening her to him. Celia tasted his desire, thought of the dark passion of that morning, and her body dissolved into heat.

  Alec continued the kissing, with hands skimming her bodice, unpinning her fichu to nip his way across her breasts, as the carriage moved east through the Temple Bar to Fleet Street and then up around the glory of St. Paul’s to Cheapside, and an inn there where Mrs. Reynolds was to meet them.

  Alec helped Celia re-pin her fichu and restore her hat over her now-mussed hair by the time they stopped, and Alec stepped down to find Mrs. Reynolds. He’d proved that gloved hands on her skin could be a powerful sensation.

  Celia knew she was still flushed and unkempt when Mrs. Reynolds ascended and sat next to her on the forward facing seat—where ladies sat—because Mrs. Reynolds assumed a slightly disapproving expression as she looked Celia over. She said nothing, however, only waited for Alec to climb in and take the rear-facing seat.

  Alec’s eyes glimmered with mirth, he not the least ashamed that Mrs. Reynolds guessed he’d been fondling his bride.

  Mrs. Reynolds said nothing until they’d wound their way through Cornhill and Leadenhall Street to Whitechapel, through that district to Mile End Road. At the turnpike gate, the coachman paid the toll, and they were through into open country.

  Staying north of the river, the road took them through Middlesex toward Essex and the sea.

  “Lady Flora was most astonished to receive your message,” Mrs. Reynolds said, fixing Alec with a sharp gaze once they were surrounded by farmland. “And a bit put out.”

  “Livid, ye mean,” Alec said, unabashed. “She knew when she met me that I’d follow my own path.”

  Mrs. Reynolds turned her sharp gaze to Celia. “You are well, my lady?”

  “Of course,” Celia said. “Lord Alec has explained everything to me, including Lady Flora’s plan for him to put me into his power utterly.”

  “Which he has done,” Mrs. Reynolds snapped. “Quite thoroughly, it seems.”

  Alec said nothing, only gazed out the window, as though he saw no reason to justify himself.

  “In a kinder way than Lady Flora had in mind,” Celia answered. “Why should Lady Flora want to see me ruined? Does she hate me so? I can’t imagine what I’ve done to earn her wrath.”

  Mrs. Reynolds let out a sigh. “It’s nothing to do with you, Lady Celia. Flora—her ladyship—is distraught. I am afraid she saw you as a means to an end, that is all, and she thought that if Lord Alec made you afraid and dependent on his good will, you would be more biddable. I am sorry—truly. I tried to make her see reason, but …” She swallowed, the cool, poised woman shaken. “I am pleased Lord Alec has proved himself a gentleman.”

  “I usually do,” Alec said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I’m not the rogue Will is. To be fair, his ladies go to him most willingly—he’s a charmer, not a rake.”

  Mrs. Reynolds continued to look distressed, and Celia patted her hand. She wasn’t certain what to say—how did she respond to an apology about a plan to have her seduced and abandoned? The fact that Lady Flora had nothing against Celia herself did nothing to mitigate Celia’s anger and bewilderment.

  She thought of how Lady Flora had wept after the soldiers had searched her house, how pathetically she’d clung to Celia. Lady Flora had always been arrogant and haughty, and Sophia’s death and her grief had turned her ruthless and harder still. The sparkle that had drawn all society to her had become deadly lightning.

  Celia wished she could explain to all of them that she wasn’t the giddy halfwit they imagined her. She’d known quite well her risk when she’d asked for Alec’s help, but she’d known her trust in him hadn’t been misplaced.

  She’d grown up watching calculating men and women thrust and parry in order to rise in power or help their sons, daughters, and friends do so. There were people in her mother’s circle who—like Lady Flora—would stop at nothing to further their ambitions, no matter who they hurt in the process. Others were equally as determined but held themselves to principles that they would not compromise. Those men and women had honor, and were recognized as such.

  Alec was in the second category. Celia had seen this from his affection for his daughter, his true interest in Celia’s art skills, his rage at the guests at the salon, his impatience with Lady Flora’s high-handedness, his gentleness with Celia, and his protectiveness toward her against Lady Flora and her mother.

  Celia had not refused Lord Harrenton solely from a maiden’s disappointment that she’d marry an aging man. She’d seen his shallowness, his lechery, his greed—he’d even asked her father, in Celia’s hearing, whether her legacy would be turned over to him. If Lord Harrenton had been a kind and caring man, Celia might have accepted. Lord James, her mother’s next choice, had the same shallowness and lack of integrity.

  Celia wanted the duchess and Lady Flora to understand that she made choices for reasons and not whims, but she supposed they never would. To them, Celia had been vulnerable and pliable, but that was over now. She was wife to a man she’d pledged her loyalty to, a man who’d earned her respect.

  The road led off into farmland, and after that, marshes that ran along the river. The stink of the city fell behind, though the marshes weren’t much better—foulness from the dockyards flowed downstream to the sea.

  When it grew dark, the coachman clattered into the yard of an inn, one of the coaching houses along the turnpike. Traveling at night brought many dangers, and Alec, it turned out, had already arranged accommodation along their route.

  Celia shared a tiny bedchamber with him, most of it taken up by a large bed.

  “A gentleman, ye ladies decided I was?” Alec asked as he skimmed out of his clothes and slid bare under the covers with her. “Ye flatter me.”

  “You are.” Celia’s heart beat faster, her body moving against his of its own accord. “Whether you like it or not.”

  “What I like is you, my wife,” Alec whispered, and then he loved her a
s the candles burned and sputtered out with the acrid odor of tallow.

  In the morning, they went on, after a hearty breakfast brought up by the innkeeper’s wife. The food was plain but good, and the innkeeper’s wife flushed when Celia praised it.

  Alec had styled them as a squire and his wife, with Mrs. Reynolds a widowed friend and companion to Celia. He seemed to revel in the deception, speaking little, looking confused when asked too many questions. The innkeeper and wife were indulgent to him, probably thinking him a bit slow in the head. Alec laughed as they rolled away, Mrs. Reynolds frowning at him.

  “I understand why Willie likes the games he plays,” Alec said, then his laughter died. “Though his games can be deadly, the bloody fool.”

  If the errand weren’t so dire, Celia would be rejoicing in the country drive. June was marching on, the time when her father would be finishing up his business in London and moving them to the country for the rest of the year. Soft warmth touched the land around them, the fields blushing green, the trees beyond the marshes growing thick with foliage.

  The Crenshaw estate in Kent, Hungerford Park, was beautiful, with a grand garden and grassy lawn, rambling hills excellent for long walks or rides on the duke’s horses. The house was the largest in the area, a stone villa with rows of glittering windows, galleries of paintings, and books—so many books. On rainy days, Celia and her father shut themselves in the library and read all day long.

  She would miss that. A qualm touched her, but she refused to give up all joy in her life because her mother had shoved her down a path—quite literally. She would prove that Alec Mackenzie was no traitor, his family would be restored, and he and her father would come to know and like each other. Harmony would return to life, she was certain of it. The alternative was too painful to face.

  They followed the river and its waving marsh grasses to Tilbury, but they moved on through that town, not stopping until they reached a tiny village called Stanford le Hope. Here they found a small inn happy to take their custom.