“So you did. I’m glad to know it’ll be better tomorrow.”
She nodded toward the stairs. “Ye both need to change into some dry clothes. If ye’ll peel off the wet ones and put them outside of yer rooms, I’ll spread them afore the fire in the kitchen and let them dry.” She took their cloaks and coats. “I’ll take these to the kitchen and spread them out and then come back to get the clothes.”
“Thank you,” Michael said to her retreating back. He turned to Jane. “I hope there’s a fire in my bedchamber, though I somehow doubt it.”
Jane hiked her skirts and began to wade toward the stairs, the wet cloth dragging about her.
“You look like a duck.”
“I feel like one, too. My skirts are as heavy as two brick-loaded portmanteaus.”
“Take them off.”
Jane sent him a startled glance. “I can’t undress here.”
“Why not?”
“Someone could come in and there I’d be in a wet chemise. It’s not—”
Michael scooped her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.
“Just what do you think you are doing?”
“Quieting your ridiculous complaints.” He strode up the stairs as if they were flat ground, not even winded at the exertion, leaving Jane speechless.
As he neared the top, he looked down at her. “I’ll carry you to your room but you’re on your own after that. I must get ready for my visit with Lady MacDonald.”
Jane had to clamp her mouth closed over a very unladylike retort. It would have been easy to pretend that Michael’s efforts meant more than the impulse of the moment. A weaker woman might have slipped her arms around his neck. A more needy woman might even have pressed herself to his strong shoulders and enjoyed the feel of his strength as he carried her. But Jane was neither weak nor needy, so instead she made a fist and punched the lout in the shoulder.
He gave a muffled “Oof.” “What was that for?”
“I know why you’re going to see Lady MacDonald, and I don’t like it.”
“What I do with my free time is my own business. And need I remind you who is the boss here? I don’t require your permission to visit anyone.”
“Jackanapes.”
He favored her with a brief smile. “Weakling.”
She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. “Barbarian.”
“Froofy female.”
“Overmuscled Viking spawn.”
“Weak-kneed bluestocking.”
Aha! She gave him a superior smile. “I like being called a bluestocking.”
“Good,” he said, kicking open the bedchamber door and stalking across the floor. “Then I’ll call you that every chance I get.” He paused by the bed, his eyes suddenly alight. “You know what happens now?”
Something in the way he spoke made her suddenly breathless as she imagined the possibilities. Would he place her on the bed and then join her? Hold her in his arms and kiss her senseless? She shivered at the thought as she asked in a breathless voice, “What happens now?”
“This.” And with that, he threw her onto the bed with such vigor that she bounced twice before coming to a lopsided rest.
“Oh! You . . . you . . . you . . .”
He laughed and turned on his heel. “You should call for a bath to warm you up. I’d take one, too, but I don’t wish to be late for my visit with Lady MacDonald.”
Jane propped herself up and scooted to the edge of the bed, her clinging clothes making even that simple action difficult. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s still raining. Hard.”
He stopped by the foot of the bed and sent her a glinting smile. “Oh, I’d noticed. That’s why I’m not changing my clothes.”
“But you’re wet through!”
“And I’ll be even wetter when I arrive at Lady MacDonald’s. She’ll invite me in once she notices and take pity on me, while secretly being pleased that I went through a storm to reach her. I’ll get much more information from her then.”
Jane was astonished at how correct he was. That was exactly the sort of quixotic gesture that would appeal to Lindsee. “You are becoming quite manipulative, Hurst. I don’t like that about you.”
“Was it manipulative when you told the sulfi who was holding me prisoner that you enjoyed the Phrygian dominant scale in Egyptian music, when I know for a fact that you find it discordant? Or when you told those traders in India that you love coconut milk, when you think it tastes like—”
“I see your point, but in those particular circumstances I was attempting to form a bond in order to garner useful information.”
“Which is exactly what I plan to do. Lady MacDonald can help me solve a mystery.”
Jane scowled at him and stood. “You, sir, are annoyingly stubborn.”
“As are you. Although . . . if it bothers you that much, I might be willing to stop my questioning of Lady MacDonald.”
That was hopeful. “You should leave her alone.”
Michael leaned against the tall bed post, his smile glinting. “And so I might . . . if a certain someone—you, for instance—would offer me an incentive.”
That wasn’t what she’d hoped to hear. She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s come to bribery, has it?”
He chuckled and bent to cup her chin, turning her face to his, his voice deep and intimate. “Tell me, Jane. What would you offer me not to visit Lady MacDonald?”
His hand was so warm against her skin that it sent a shiver through her. Jane looked into his eyes and wanted nothing more than to throw her arms about his neck and press herself to him and forget everything—her past on Barra, the poor state of things here, her suspicion that her uncle was stealing from the island’s funds, and most of all, how complicated things would be if she were discovered.
All of that piled one onto the other and tried to weigh her down, but the warmth in Michael’s eyes offered something else . . . something more . . .
“Jane?” His voice whispered her name, rich and silky.
Her skin tingled and her heart beat against her throat as an overwhelming yearning to lean toward him swept over her. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to give him a kiss. Just one. Or perhaps two, if that’s what it took. Besides, she yearned for it so.
She stood on her tiptoes, closed her eyes, and offered her lips to him.
Nothing happened.
After a moment, she opened her eyes to find Michael regarding her with a knowing look.
He dropped his hand from her chin. “Just as I suspected: you’re desperate to keep me from seeing Lady MacDonald, which makes me all the more determined to see her.” He winked at Jane and walked to the doorway. “I’ll see you when I return.”
“Oh! You-you-you dog! To tease me so is just— Oh!” She wished she had something to throw. “Somewhere along the way, you’ve become a complete scoundrel, Michael Hurst. A complete and total scoundrel.”
He chuckled again. “I know. Don’t wait up for me; I may be a while. I have a lot of questions to ask Lady MacDonald. A lot.”
With a wink, he left, closing the door behind him.
Jane listened to his footsteps as he went down the steps and to the front door, which he closed with an exuberant slam.
Jane grabbed her pillow and flung it at the door, where it landed with an unsatisfying thud. Then, sighing her frustration, she threw herself back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Blast you, Hurst! I hope you catch your death of the ague.”
CHAPTER 12
From the diary of Michael Hurst:
If it doesn’t stop raining soon, I shall be forced to kill someone.
You do not need me to go with you?” Ammon peered through the growing darkness at the manor house that rose before them.
“No. Just wait here with the horses. I shouldn’t be long.”
“Yes, miss.” He eyed the house. “It’s a very large edifice.”
“Too large,” she muttered. Eoligary House was large by any standards, but it was especially la
rge given the fact that it had been placed on a bluff so that it towered over the entire end of the island. The house was three stories tall and of rich red brick covered with thick green vines. The front portico boasted no fewer than eight large columns, and a side terrace looked out over the sea. How can Jaimie afford this? she wondered. She knew the land’s income well, and there was no way he’d be able to pay for the upkeep of such a house. Just the coal to heat this house would take half of Barra’s income.
She noted that light burned in only two rooms, one on the lower level and one on the middle. Hopefully one was a sitting room where the family was gathered, and the other a study or library where she might find Jaimie alone.
She turned to Ammon. “Don’t be surprised if you hear loud noises. Some people might think I’m a ghost and raise an alarm before I can explain otherwise.”
“A ghost, miss?”
“A spirit.”
“Ah,” Ammon said, though his tone let her know he didn’t.
“Just stay here and hold the horses. I’ll be back soon.” She started to leave and then had another thought. “Oh. And just so you aren’t surprised, I might not use the front door.”
“Pardon, miss?”
“I don’t want everyone in the house to know I’m here; just one person, so I may slip in a side door. Or a window. I don’t know yet.”
“So you are skulking.” There was no mistaking the disapproval in the servant’s tone.
“No, no. I’m not skulking. I’m just being discreet.”
“It looks like skulking.”
“Well, it’s not,” she said sharply.
“Very well, miss.” Ammon seemed far less certain now, his dark eyes flickering from her to the house and then back. “Perhaps I should bring the horses closer, in case you have need of some assistance. Then, I could hear you more clearly if you called out.”
“No, no. That won’t be necessary.”
“But, miss, if you enter through a window, someone might mistake you for a thief and shoot you.”
Jane chuckled, thinking of Jaimie being moved to violence. She just couldn’t fathom it. “I’m in no danger, Ammon. I promise.”
“You know this person you visit, then?”
“He’s a relative. A cousin.”
Ammon’s brows rose.
Jane sighed. “I know that sounds odd, but the owner of this house and I used to be very close and I’d like to visit with him without having to include others, which is what I’d have to do if I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Jaimie and I need to talk alone.”
Ammon’s concerned expression relaxed a little. “Very good, miss. I will await you here, then.”
She nodded and, glad to see that the sun had finally sunk below the horizon, started to slip toward the house, pausing behind various shrubberies and trees as she went.
She realized she was tired, though that shouldn’t have been a surprise. She’d arisen early, had been caught in the excitement of the cliff face climb, and then had gotten thoroughly drenched. After a tepid bath, she’d spent a fretful few hours waiting on Michael to return from Lindsee’s.
Those hours had been difficult because she couldn’t stop imagining that meeting. Lindsee was a beautiful woman and Michael—when he wished—could be devastatingly charming.
The thought had driven Jane to distraction. Not that she was jealous, for she wasn’t. She was just—
She frowned. She didn’t know what she’d been, but it wasn’t a feeling she wished to feel ever again. When Michael hadn’t come home by twilight, she’d realized that she needed something to do rather than fret, and so she’d had Ammon saddle two horses and she’d come to visit Jaimie.
And now here she was, skulking about like a thief in the night.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. Jane reached the house and crawled through the low hedge, ignoring how it tugged and picked at her gown. She reached the house and peeked in the window of a darkened room. She couldn’t see the furnishings or their colors, but with persistence, she eventually made out a huge marble fireplace and a harp off to one corner. “So Elspeth took up the harp, did she?” Jane murmured.
She tried the window, but it was locked. Moving on silent feet, she went to the next window and tried it. After four more tries, she finally found an unlocked window. She slowly swung it open, peered into the dark room, and then slipped inside, her foot entangling in the long velvet curtain. “Blast it,” she muttered, hopping on one foot as she twisted first to one side and then the other. She finally regained her balance, but in the process, she fell against a small table filled with knickknacks, all of which went tumbling, bouncing, and breaking.
It wasn’t the sort of entrance she’d wanted to make, and she could only be glad that no one was inside the study at the moment. Heart pounding, Jane replaced the fallen objects, listening for footsteps outside the door. None came and she breathed a sigh of relief as she shook out her skirts, grimacing at the grass stains from where she’d crawled through the hedge. “Not very ladylike,” she told herself. She closed the window and looked about the room.
She’d walked no more than three steps when she froze in place, her jaw dropping. Except for two items—the walls were plaster instead of stone, and the number of palm fronds growing from pots in every corner—the room looked like a duplicate of the study at Kisimul Castle. Every piece of furniture was grouped here as it had been in Kisimul, the two wing-backed chairs flanking the fireplace, the settee with a matching chair by the windows, even the large mahogany desk. Someone had saved the furnishings from Kisimul.
The chairs had been recovered in an expensive damask, but she knew each piece of furniture as well as the back of her hand, and no amount of red-and-gold-striped material could disguise it.
She ran a hand along the desk, which had been her father’s favorite place to sit in the evenings, tracing her fingers along a dent she’d made when, as a child, she’d knocked the mace from the hands of a suit of armor and it had landed on the smooth wood and scarred it. She next touched the chair behind the desk and then noted the books. “By Ra,” she breathed. “They saved the books, too.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she was painfully grateful. It was all so familiar and so dear. When she’d heard that Kisimul had burned down, she’d assumed that all of it had gone up in flames, including this, the family furnishings, the mementos of her father’s life, the family records he’d so carefully recorded, every tradesman’s receipt and—
She blinked, looking slowly around the room. There is only one way all of this could have been salvaged, and that’s if Jaimie and his father removed the furniture before— She pressed a hand to her chest and slowly sank into her father’s chair. Surely not. Not even my uncle David is capable of such an act. Her gaze found the banner that hung over the doorway. Embroidered over three centuries ago, it carried the MacNeil heraldry and displayed the family crest. It had once hung high over the hearth of the Great Hall. It would have been almost impossible to remove in a fire.
They knew the castle was going to burn down. They knew because they’re the ones who set the fire. But why? Why did they burn Kisimul?
Her stomach clenched at the thought. Her home, the place she loved more than anywhere else on earth, set afire like a pile of rubbish. What benefit could they have possibly garnered from—
A sound outside the door made her freeze in place. The large brass doorknob began to turn, and she scrambled away from the desk and dove behind a large marble table just as the door opened.
She peered out through the fronds of the large palm, watching as Jaimie MacNeil entered the study and closed the door behind him. He went to the desk and lit one of the lanterns that sat upon it, the light sweeping across him and casting eerie shadows on the walls.
It had been fourteen years since she’d last seen him, and the years had been kind to him. Where before he’d been a painfully thin youth with large ears and a thin and warbly voice, he’d since filled out and now carried himself with t
he grace of one used to physical exertion. His dark hair was fashionably cut and fell over his brow, emphasizing his brown eyes. His hair, though, was streaked with silver, which was surprising, given that he was younger than her by two years.
He sat down at the desk, pulled out a sheath of papers, and selected a pen from his inkwell. He looked somberly at the papers, raked a hand through his graying hair, and then began to add up columns of numbers.
She noted that the papers were marred with large ink blots, as if someone had struggled to collect the information, whatever it was. And indeed, Jaimie looked equally serious, a worn expression marring his face.
Jane smoothed her gown and then stood. “Hello, Jaimie.”
He gasped and dropped the pen upon his desk, a splash of ink spattering across the page. His eyes were wide, his mouth opening and closing before he suddenly jumped back, almost tipping his chair over in the process. “Y-y-you can’t b-b-be!” he said in such a loud voice that she winced.
“Whssst, Jaimie! Do you want to awake the entire household?”
He shook his head no, though he didn’t seem able to look away from her, his face completely white. “Jennet? Is that . . . is that really you?”
“Of course it is, fool!”
He sagged. “You scared me to death! I thought you were a ghostie.”
“Do I look like a ghostie?”
He looked her up and then down. “No.”
She rolled her eyes at the uncertainty in his voice. “I told you I’d come back one day.”
“Yes, when we were both ninety.”
“Ninety?” She bit her lip. “Oh, yes. I did say that, didn’t I? Well, I’m a bit early, then.”
“You’re here. I just can’t—” Jaimie wiped his brow, his hands shaking. “Good God. Where have you been? Where are you staying?”
“I’m staying at the Macphersons’ inn right now.”
“Ah. I’d heard there were strangers staying there—someone even said one of them looked like a MacNeil—but I never thought it would be you.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Well, believe it, for I’m here, standing before you.”