DARE THE WILD WIND (30 page)

He laughed at his clumsy stab at wit, and Charles laughed with him, in a way that made Drake's hands itch to close around his throat.  Drake struggled to suppress his anger.  His reaction startled him.  A moment ago he had wished Brenna  married.  But not so soon, and not to a larcenous scarecrow like Godwin. 

"Are you sure Godwin is equal to the task?" Drake asked.

Charles bristled.  "Sir, you mock me." 

Drake saw fear of his reputation on the field of honor war with fury in the other man's face. 

"Not at all," he came back in a cool dismissing voice.  "We're all three acquainted with how wayward the lady can be."

He met Godwin's eyes and smiled icily at the unpleasant question his last remark had raised. 

"I assure you," Charles said tightly, "as my wife, Lady Brenna will be a model of obedience."

The picture of Brenna under this man's thumb sent a new shaft of rage through Drake.  And an even more unwanted vision rose up before him, of the creamy perfection of Brenna's body, captive in Godwin's bed.  He made an effort at control.

"I take it, then, Lord MacBeal is immune to scandal.  Or do you plan to allow the talk to subside before you post the banns?"

Drake saw a galling flicker of anticipation in Charles's flat dark eyes.  "What people say has never concerned  me," he threw back.  "Lady Brenna and I are well matched in that."

Malcolm broke in with a thin smile.  "The marriage will put an end to the scandal.  And I rely on Charles to see my sister is kept close once we're back in
Scotland." 

Fresh shock silenced Drake for a second.  "You don't propose haste in Lady Brenna's present state of mind?" 

Godwin barked out a laugh.  "What better time to console her?"  His expression was gratified and obscene.  "Brenna is ripe for the picking, an
d I've waited longer than most men to claim my bride."  

The serving girl reappeared with fresh tankards of ale, and he dropped a coin into her exposed cleavage as she bent over their table.  Malcolm made to retrieve it, and she dodged nimbly away.

"Malcolm and I are agreed.  Brenna and I will say our vows before we leave
London."

Drake strode out of the Boar and Crown toward the Mall, impatient to part from them both.  Malcolm intended to be rid of Brenna as quickly as possible.  The fact that Lord MacBeal was far from a suitable husband for Brenna meant nothing to him.  He had brushed aside Drake's protests that grief had left Brenna in a fragile state.  His sister's health and happiness meant nothing to Dalmoral.  Despite Brenna's defiance and her desperate flight to
London, she deserved better.  Then Drake caught himself short.

She had brought her predicament on herself.  Malcolm's solution was far from uncommon.  A girl who cast aside convention could expect little more.  Her ill
chaperoned journey from Scotland would render her virtue suspect in the eyes of any suitor.  Drake had done what he could to save her reputation when he put her in the care of Eleanore Wittworth, but it was too little and too late.

Brenna's body tempted him and her flare of passion had ignited him, but he wanted no part o
f a woman in love with another man.  Least of all a dead man.  Drake had no desire to compete with a ghost.

As titled head of his family, Malcolm had absolute power to dispose of his sister in marriage.  Drake had no right to interfere.  All the same, something gnawed at his belly with small sharp teeth, and he heartily regretted the mission that had taken him to
Lochmarnoch Castle and his first encounter with Brenna Dalmoral.

He stalked onto the graveled path of the park, scattering a knot of perfumed dandies.  His glare silenced their objections, but the dazzling woman ahead of him refused to be brushed aside so easily. 

"My Lord Stratford," she said, her arch formality belying the more intimate names she had called him in her house on
Regent Street.  "I hadn't heard you'd returned to London."

Wrenched from his black temper, Drake marshaled the gallantry she expected and bowed over her hand. "Lady Scoville." 

Caroline glanced up at him through silky blonde lashes, her green eyes playful but discerning. 

"What a thunderous look," she said in teasing reproach, tapping him lightly on the wrist with her fan.  "I hope I'm not the cause."

"I've never turned on my heel at the sight of you," Drake told her without resort to flattery. 

Caroline had been his mistress for close onto two years, and they were still friends.  She was clever and blessed with a cheer
ful irreverent sense of humor, and one of the leading beauties at court.  Her milk and rose complexion was the ideal complement to her pale gilded hair, and she had a figure as delectable as a dessert, with lush swelling pink tipped breasts and roundly curving hips that blossomed opulently from a soft, tiny waist.  Their diversions in her satin sheeted bed were still vivid in Drake's memory, and she had taught him more than he had admitted to her about women and the art of love. 

He offered her his hand and turned to walk beside her.  "I'm afraid I just parted from less agreeable company."

Unfurling her fan with the quick, graceful gesture of a practiced coquette, she basked in the attention they attracted as they strolled toward the lake in the center of Saint James Park.      

"I must confess to a certain surprise to see you consorting with anyone so grim." 

"Dalmoral?" Drake said.  "Do you know him?"

She shook her head.  "I'm speaking of Lord MacBeal."

"Not one of your former lovers?"  With a husband who long had turned a blind eye to her adventures, their numbers were consider
able, but he couldn't picture Charles with Caroline. 

Her tinkling laugh took on a faint tinny edge.  "Don't accuse me of such a lapse in taste.  He's utterly despicable."

Something uneasy stirred in Drake.  "I wasn't aware Godwin divided his time between
Scotland and London."     

"Not of late."  Caroline smiled and nodded to a dowager they passed.  "But he's far from unknown in certain circles."

"Surely not yours?" he said, suddenly loath to question her.

Caroline shot him an impatient look.  "Don't be tiresome.  What I know of him comes from an old and dear friend.  Unfortun
ately Jane has always fancied peculiar men."  Her soft mouth tightened.  "She never bargained on being tied and whipped.  And she nearly strangled on the gag he forced into her mouth.  If she hadn't worked one hand loose and reached the bell pull, God knows what he might have done."

Drake's body went rigid as she spoke.  "Godwin beat her?"

Caroline closed her fan with an angry snap.  "If her servants hadn't come to her rescue, she might have been  marked for life.  Your friend Lord MacBeal belongs in the stews in Southwark.  But his leanings aren't gratified by women who can be had for hire.  He's far more pleased when t
hey resist and plead for mercy.

                                                                                    *****

"I'll never marry Charles."  Brenna whirled away from the paneled doors of the Wittworth's drawing room as they closed behind her brother, reeling at Malcolm's parting words.

Brenna's pulse thudded heavily in her ears, and she tried to quell the suffocating panic that threatened to choke her.  The ceremony was set for
four o'clock tomorrow.  How like Malcolm to say nothing of his plan until the eve of their departure for Scotland.  He had waited till this afternoon to announce she would return to the Highlands as Charles Godwin's bride. 

Eleanore and Gregory exchanged glances. 

"Your brother's decision
is
ill  timed," Eleanore began in a stumbling voice, shock and sympathy in her expression.  "And I can hardly say Lord MacBeal is the sort young girls dream of.  But at least he's of a suitable age."

"Quite right," Lord Wittworth said awkwardly, adding his solace to his wife's.  "He can't be above thirty."

Disgust overwhelmed Brenna.  Far better a doddering septuagenarian than Charles.  She should have suspected Malcolm of this kind of scheme when Charles appeared with him in
London.   

"How can Malcolm think he can force me to this?" Brenna demanded shakily.  But she knew too well he had the weight of law and custom on his side.  He had delayed arranging a marriage for her until the Rising ended, counting on bargaining her off to greater advantage once their other
Highland neighbors returned home.  Her flight to London had thwarted that, but she hadn't reckoned on Charles renewing his suit despite her public disgrace.

"Dear child," Eleanore said, "much as it grieves me to echo your brother, in the end, you must marry.  Lord Dalmoral is remark
ably callous to rush matters, but from all you've told me about him, I should think you'll be better off out from under his roof."

"Charles is Lochmarnoch's nearest neighbor," Brenna said bleakly.  "And Malcolm's closest friend."

Malcolm had hit on the perfect revenge.  No need to starve her or lock
her in a forgotten tower.  Far more satisfying to bind her to a man who liked her no better than he did, eager as Charles was to possess her.  Charles and Malcolm had been hand in glove in unpleasant  mischief since they were boys.  And the last time they had been alone at Lochmarnoch, she had insulted Charles unforgivably.  Brenna had no doubt Charles would exact payment for her angry rejection, and remain in league with Malcolm at her expense. 

Eleanore's face reflected uncomfortable comprehension.  She aimed a sudden incensed look at her husband.  "It's a pity these matters are so poorly worked out by the men who make our laws."

Geoffrey winced at catching the blame for the sins of his sex.  "I favor seeing these things
more satisfactorily arranged, but I can't gainsay your brother," he told Brenna.  "Perhaps you'd like a little time alone to sort this out."

Brenna nodded numbly.  Excusing herself, she left the salon and slowly climbed the curving steps of the Wittworth's grand staircase to her room. 

She couldn't marry Charles.  With
Cam dead, she had no wish to marry at all.  She would never lie willingly in Charles Godwin's bed.  But where could she go now?  Malcolm had confiscated Brenna's small cache of jewelry.  She had no money and no means of escape.  And no heart for any more intrigues, no more desire to race heedlessly through London's hostile vice  clogged streets.  Cam's death had stilled some vital cog inside her. 

Thomas Wolcott had brought only one healing piece of news.  Iain MacCavan had been spared the noose.  The number of prisoners taken in
Scotland had overwhelmed the English courts.  Only a fraction of the captive Rebels could be brought before a magistrate.  The King had ordered the vanquished Scots to cast lots to decide which of them would be tried. 

Fate had mocked
Cam.  He'd had the bad luck to draw the wrong straw.  But Iain had won his life.  With a thousand other prisoners, he had been transported.  On the same day Cam went to the gallows, Iain was put aboard a merchant ship, sentenced to be sold as an indentured servant in the American plantations.  Next to Cam, Iain had been the closest friend of Brenna's childhood.  She was grateful he had survived.  After Iain served out his seven years, he would be free to make a new life in the Colonies. 

The loss of Fe
nella had saddened Brenna even more when Thomas brought her word of Iain.  The Bonnie Prince and his charm had cost them all their lives, their hopes, and their dreams.  And left Brenna to face marriage to a repulsive insect like Charles. 

Twilight crept over
Grosvenor Square.  When she fell at last into a broken and exhausted sleep, Brenna knew she could never submit to the marriage Malcolm had planned for her. 

With
Cam gone, she had no reason left to live, and the waters past Gravesend were cold and deep. 

                                *****

The knock clattered through Brenna's fitful dream.  The door to her bedchamber creaked open, and Brenna saw a disembodied face lit in the flare of a candle.  Her maid Polly dropped a curtsy, brown curls bobbing beneath her frilled nightcap.  "M'lady, you're wanted downstairs."

"Downstairs?"  The room was black.  "It can't be morning."

"'Tis
half past three.  You're summoned to the Italian salon.”

Brenna sank back into the refuge of her pillow.  "Go back to bed.  You've eaten something that's given you indigestion."  But Polly bent over Brenna to tug at her arm and shake her. 

"Lady Brenna, you
must wake up.  I'm not sleepwalking, and I've never been nipping at the master's brandy.  Lord Wittworth is waiting for you, and Lord Dalmoral is with him."

"Malcolm?  Here before light?"  Brenna was awake now. 

Surely Malcolm didn't mean to marry her off before dawn?  What self
  respecting clergyman would agree to being rousted from his bed at this hour?

"Is Lord MacBeal among the company?" she asked bitterly.