She had thought he’d known, that he’d understood, as she had, that he and she were fated to be consorts. Lovers. Spouses. Husband and wife. Ever since she’d truly known beyond question, during that Christmas Eve he and she and several of her relatives had spent in a crofter’s cottage ten years ago, she’d interpreted his reactions toward her on the assumption that he knew and understood, too.
He was Lady-touched, as she was. He’d lived under the Lady’s rule, or so she’d thought. She’d assumed he’d known…
But if he hadn’t either known or understood, why had he behaved as he had?
She climbed into the large tester bed, lay back, and pulled the covers to her chin. Staring, unseeing, upward, she searched for an answer.
Her memory of each of their meetings was acute; reviewing all that had occurred, reliving each moment yet again…
No. She hadn’t imagined anything. The intensity of the attraction that had flared every time they’d met, and that had escalated with the years, had been and still was impossible to mistake.
It had consistently been there, in his eyes, in the way his jaw set, in his touch.
Remembering the last time they’d waltzed, at the Hunt Ball two years ago, still made her tremble.
There was no possibility of denying such an attraction—and to give him his due, she didn’t think he’d tried.
Instead, as he had that evening, he’d simply turned and walked away from it.
Walked away from her.
Which, she had to admit, confused her no end.
She knew intensely passionate men—every man in her family was built that way. She was far better acquainted with their foibles than she would ever have chosen to be.
But that meant that she should understand him. That his actions should make sense to her, in one way or another.
Yet at the moment, she didn’t know what was going on—what issues, what considerations, were making him back away from an attraction that should have seen him fighting to keep her in his arms.
Instead, he’d let her go and walked off.
She didn’t know whether she was insulted, or angry, or just plain confused.
With her thoughts gradually slowing, she closed her eyes and reached for the Lady—sensed her comforting presence, an elemental heartbeat softly rolling beneath the blanket of the night.
Gradually, the confused tangle of her thoughts sank deeper, leaving revealed the rocks to which she could—should—cling.
He wanted her—every bit as much as she now wanted him. Desire between them ran strongly, a rope connecting them no matter what either might wish or will. The Lady had ordained that, and neither she nor he had the power to overcome, eradicate, or dismiss that.
The Lady had ordained that he and she would wed, that he—Lady-touched and therefore a guardian of his people, whether he understood that or not—would be her consort. Neither he nor she could step away from that destiny without suffering drastic consequences; their lives would never run smoothly or well, but would, instead, be shrouded in miseries.
But no matter what the Lady decreed, people, even those Lady-touched, still had free will.
If Thomas chose to walk away, he could.
Over the last year, she had wondered whether she was supposed to act in some way to bring about their Lady-ordained marriage. Acting—doing—would have been so much more in keeping with her character, her temperament, her usual way of facing and dealing with life’s challenges. She’d questioned, but in the end, she’d accepted and waited…
Perhaps her time to act was finally here.
As she slipped over the threshold into sleep, it certainly seemed that convincing Thomas that he couldn’t walk away from her and his Lady-ordained future was a task that fell to her.
* * *
Thomas woke restless and somehow dissatisfied. Unwilling to dwell on what his body seemed to think it lacked, he threw on his clothes and headed down to the stable to check on Phantom and Lucilla’s mare.
Even though it was early, he avoided the breakfast parlor. He didn’t need to learn if Lucilla was an early riser—she probably was.
He walked out of the front door and circled the house. Alice Watts was due to arrive that morning. As soon as Lucilla had coached Alice in all she needed to do, he would escort Lucilla back to the Vale, to Marcus—who, no doubt, would be very ready to take back his sister and send Thomas on his way.
It said much of his mood that he was starting to feel glad that he’d been forced to knock Marcus Cynster unconscious.
On reaching the stable, he walked inside. A quick glance around found no Sean, Mitch, or Fred, which surprised him. He hadn’t expected to see any of his cousins about at that hour, but the stablemen were usually at work by now.
Yesterday, he’d made time to speak with Sean about finding Joy Burns’s canteen and getting some water from the Bradshaws’ well, and sending samples from both sources off to Glasgow for analysis. As well as his other duties, Sean handled the various soil- and water-related tests the estate ran in the continuing effort to eke out the best from their lands. Thomas wanted to check that Sean had found Joy’s canteen, and when he thought the results from the laboratory might come back.
But he would have to check later, because Sean was nowhere in sight.
Mentally shrugging, Thomas went down the aisle. He spent the next fifteen minutes grooming Phantom, then stepped into the next stall and started brushing the black mare’s glossy hide. She shifted, not accustomed to him. Phantom hung his head over the wall between the stalls, as if intrigued by the mare’s prancing. She quieted after that, allowing Thomas to groom her.
When both horses were gleaming, he relatched their stalls. He was replacing the brushes on the wall at the end of the stable when, in the distance, he heard a horse whicker.
The noise came from outside, from beyond the end of the stable. But he hadn’t heard anyone ride up, and there weren’t any horse paddocks in that direction.
Puzzled, he walked out of the stable. Another whicker carried on the breeze drew his gaze—to the old barn.
As far as he knew, it was used to store old carriages and carts no longer in use, old implements no one was ready to throw away just in case they were needed again. No horses of any kind had been stabled there for years.
He walked toward the barn. The closer he got, the more sounds he heard—the shifting stamp of horses’ hooves on straw-strewn earth, the rattle of a stall wall as a horse bumped it.
And voices.
He walked through the open barn door and discovered that Sean, Mitch, and Fred were, indeed, at work. They were mucking out the stalls and feeding and grooming…Thomas counted along the line of stalls…eight horses.
Eight examples of prime horseflesh, with glossy coats and strong legs. Four had the deep chests of carriage horses, two the sleeker build of Thoroughbreds, while the last pair were hunters, heavy and powerful.
He stood staring for a full minute, then Sean, standing in a nearby stall, brush in hand, saluted him. “Morning.”
Slowly walking forward, Thomas returned the greeting. Then he asked, “Where did these come from?” He faced Sean. “Who do they belong to?”
Sean looked him in the eye, then flicked a glance at Mitch and Fred before returning his gaze to Thomas’s face. “Don’t rightly know, do we? You’d do better asking Master Nigel.”
Thomas studied Sean’s eyes. “Nigel brought them here?”
“Him and Master Nolan.” Mitch came to join them. “The pair o’ them brought the beasts.” With his chin, Mitch directed Thomas’s gaze down the aisle to the barn’s end. “And those, too.”
Thomas peered into the shadows at the back of the barn and saw the outline of three carriages.
“Not as if we don’t have enough work to do,” Fred grumbled from a nearby stall.
“Aye.” Sean got back to his brushing. “And the breeding season’s already on us—not that that pair seem concerned about that.”
Thomas heard the comp
laint for what it was; the clan had always saved money by breeding their own horses and donkeys to use on the estate’s farms. In any decent season, there were usually a few extra to sell, helping the coffers just that bit more.
His earlier question of what was going on was translating into what the devil Nigel and Nolan were up to.
But as he walked deeper into the barn, Thomas acknowledged that although this problem-of-sorts, along with the matter of the seed supply, clearly lay at his cousins’ doors, none of the more serious incidents could be attributed to them. They’d been away in Ayr when the Burns sisters had died and the Bradshaws had fallen ill.
He reached the end of the barn, where a large open area had previously played host to a jumble of old carts, drays, and carriages. All had been shifted and crammed somewhat haphazardly aside to accommodate three new carriages. Spanking new carriages, barely used. One was a sleek, elegant, high-perch phaeton, another a well-appointed racing curricle, while the third was a closed gentleman’s carriage of distinctly modern design. Thomas opened a door and looked in. Fine leather, polished oak, and gilt trimmings met his eyes.
He closed the door and, for a moment, stood looking down at the barn floor.
He wasn’t intimately acquainted with the clan’s finances, with the profits and cash flows from the estate. He’d never sought such information; the clan had never been his inheritance—there had been no need for him to know such details.
That said, he was a businessman, one most others in Glasgow considered extremely shrewd. Even without knowing the details, he knew beyond question that the clan’s wealth would not stretch to the acquisition of such carriages, let alone the horseflesh presently gracing the barn.
This, he suspected, was a part of the answer to their question of what was going on. He stirred and started back up the aisle. Drawing level with Sean, he met the head stableman’s eyes and nodded. “I’ll take your advice—I’ll ask Nigel.”
Jaw setting, Sean nodded back.
Thomas paused long enough to ask his questions about the samples to be sent for testing, and to hear Sean’s reply as to how long it might be before the results came back: “A month or more, depending on how much work from others is already waiting to be done.”
As he strode back to the house, Thomas recalled the scene he’d witnessed the afternoon before, when Nigel and Nolan had ridden into the stable yard.
He hadn’t understood the sullen reception they’d received.
Regardless of all the other threads still flapping in the breeze, he was fairly certain he understood that now.
* * *
He was alone at the breakfast table when Lucilla walked in. She was wearing a day gown in a shade of bronzy-green that, combined with her fire-red hair, made him think of autumn.
The gown’s fine material also revealed far more of her figure than either the velvet of her riding habit or the stiff silk of her evening gown had, which did nothing for his comfort.
Of course, after smiling in greeting, then filling her plate at the sideboard, she came to the place beside him. He rose and drew out the chair for her, held it while she sat and settled, then sank back into his own.
Clearly comfort wasn’t something he was destined to experience any time soon.
Luckily, Norris, closely followed by Niniver, arrived. The pair served themselves and took the places opposite him and Lucilla. In between bites of toast and jam, Lucilla asked Niniver and Norris about Alice, and the conversation slid into safe arenas.
But just having Lucilla close played havoc with his concentration. As distractions went, she was as potent as they came, at least for him. If he’d been restless before, having her within his senses’ reach only intensified the feeling.
He remained puzzled by her question about what he knew of the Lady. Why ask that? The implication and her reaction to his answer suggested she’d thought he would know more. But, again, why? What could she have expected him to know?
Despite the fact he had—he thought fairly definitely—stepped back from her last night, and signaled his decision not to pursue the path she’d seemed hell-bent on rushing down, her attitude to him this morning could best be described as equable.
He had no idea why he could sense her mood so clearly, yet he could. She was calm, serene—and focused.
He wasn’t sure on what.
Before he could decide whether he needed to remain on guard against her, Nigel and Nolan strolled in. The pair greeted Lucilla, their siblings, and him with almost identical, arrogantly insouciant airs. Unimpressed, he waited until they’d served themselves and sat, Nigel at the end of the table with Nolan to his left, next to Niniver. He waited while both started in on the ham and eggs on their plates, until Nigel paused and reached for the mug of coffee he’d poured himself.
“There are,” Thomas said, his tone even and uninflected, as unaggressive as he could make it, “eight excellent specimens of horseflesh, plus three new carriages, in the old barn.”
Nigel froze, his mug halfway to his mouth. A heartbeat passed, then his gaze flicked up to Thomas’s face.
Thomas arched his brows. “Who do they belong to?”
Nigel’s gaze darted to Nolan. Impassive, Nolan looked back at Nigel. Then Nigel turned to Thomas and smiled. “Good cattle, aren’t they? Very nice steppers.”
“So they appeared.” Thomas waited, his gaze on Nigel’s face.
Nolan leaned forward, reaching for the jam pot. Picking it up, he grinned at Thomas. “There’s no mystery, cuz. We’re looking after them for a friend. He’s been forced to sell up—trouble with his creditors, don’t you know? The horses and carriages in the old barn are the ones he wants to keep, but he thought it wise to get them out of sight for the nonce.”
Nigel was nodding. “He needed somewhere to keep them, and we had the room. No skin off our nose to house them.”
Thomas thought of how much feed eight horses could go through, let alone the time taken for their care. In a level tone, he ventured, “The stablemen didn’t seem quite so thrilled to have double the number of horses to tend.”
Nigel humphed. “A surly lot they’re turning out to be, even if they are distant cousins.”
Seated closer to Nigel and Nolan than Thomas, Lucilla could feel the suppressed animosity both were directing his way—Nigel in particular. Given what she’d seen previously of Nigel’s not-entirely-logical resentment of Thomas, she wasn’t surprised when Thomas shrugged lightly and let the subject slide.
She’d also noticed Niniver watching the exchange—watching her brothers with a quietly suspicious air. If Thomas harbored doubts about the story of the horses—and she was well aware that he did—so, too, did Niniver.
But when Niniver noticed her regard, the younger girl smiled slightly and asked, “What are you planning on doing today?”
The question fixed the attention of everyone else at the table—all except Norris, who remained determinedly detached.
Lucilla saw no reason not to answer. “Once Alice arrives, which I gather should be soon, I’ll go over the still room with her. We need to check on all the stores, and the decoctions Joy left steeping, and I need to make sure Alice is able to carry on by herself. I also want to walk through the herb garden with her and check that she has all the herbs she might need, so if there’s anything missing, I can supply it from the Vale, rather than have her distracted by having to source obscure herbs while she’s still settling in.”
Nolan, forearms folded on the table, tipped his head. “So once you’ve done that, you’ll be heading back to the Vale?”
The question was posed in a conversational tone, yet she sensed that both Nolan and Nigel—as well as Thomas—had a keen interest in her answer. Calmly, she replied, “That depends on what I find.”
Nigel waved his fork. “How so?”
She studied him for a second, then said, “For instance, much depends on the stocks of specifics Joy has put by. Once I check what she’s been making by way of tonics and medicines in genera
l, and assess whether Alice knows how to replace them, I’ll have a better idea of how long I’ll need to stay. It may take a day or two to ensure that Alice has sufficient stocks put by to continue to supply all those Joy was treating.”
Nigel frowned as if trying to remember. “I really don’t think she—old Joy—was supplying anyone with anything vital.”
Lucilla arched her brows. She knew the answer, yet still she said, “Surely she’s been treating your father, if no one else.”
Lips pursing, Nigel shook his head. “I would need to check with Edgar, but I’m fairly certain Joy wasn’t making any potions for Papa.”
“Whyever not?” Anything she could learn might be of use in convincing Manachan to accept the help she was determined to give him.
Nigel smiled, more than a touch patronizingly. “Nothing to be done, really.” He shrugged. “The old man’s just getting older. Unless you have some potion from the Fountain of Youth, there’s not much anyone can do about that, is there?”
Refutation burned her tongue, but she kept her lips shut, unwilling to respond to that not-so-subtle goad. She could have informed Nigel that, in her experienced opinion, there was a great deal that might be done to restore his father’s health, but rather than argue, she decided she would prefer a demonstration.
Coolly, she inclined her head, then pushed back from the table. She looked at Thomas. “Alice should be here soon. I’ll wait for her in the still room.”
Rising and pulling back her chair, Thomas merely nodded, then after she’d inclined her head to Niniver and her brothers, he followed her from the room.
* * *
Lucilla let the familiar ambiance of the still room close about her. Thomas had followed her down the steps and along the winding corridors to the room in the bowels of the main wing; he lounged in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the stone surround, his hands sunk in his breeches pockets, and watched her, while she ignored him.
She didn’t want to ignore him, but she was finding that he and what to do about him were taking up too much space in her mind—space she needed to devote to Alice, once she arrived, and to determining what needed to be accomplished, and in what order.