In the Heart of the Highlander (26 page)

Mary swallowed, afraid of what she’d see. She shut her eyes, but could hear perfectly when the gun went off again.

Chapter

36

“T
his is not precisely how I intended to surprise you this morning,” Alec gasped, clutching his shattered shoulder. The pain was so intense he saw spots dance across his eyes, and they were not gently waltzing. He closed them and tried to get his bearings and his breath.

It was only his left shoulder, not his heart. Bauer’s aim had been mercifully off when it counted, and now the villain was dead. He had shot himself accidentally when Mary had tripped him, but didn’t have the decency to die before he made more mischief.

There was blood. A lot of it. And Mary’s face had lost all of hers as she tried to appear in control. Her hands gave her away as she wrapped his wound in the torn sheets she had fetched from the gatehouse, the blood soaking through as fast as she could cover his skin.

“What surprise would that be?” she asked, her voice reedy.

“Well, you said you wanted to learn to drive. This will be your chance.”

“D-drive?” She said the word as if it were in a foreign language.

“It’s miles through the wood to Raeburn Court. By the time you got there on foot, I might wind up like our friend over there.”

Mary shuddered. Alec didn’t think the hole in his shoulder was fatal, but one never knew. He’d forgotten whatever he’d learned at school of veins and arteries—the only thing he knew for certain was that the blood was flowing like a red river, he couldn’t move his arm at all, his head was bursting, and he needed a doctor. He was braw enough, but not stupid.

“I’m sorry, Mary. It’s the only way. I’ll talk you through it. You’d better go get dressed.”

“Dressed?” she asked stupidly. She seemed unaware that her dressing gown was soaked in blood and she was barefoot.

She was in shock. What she had done for him would probably haunt her all her days. Bauer had died from the wound to his gut, but not before Mary kicked away the gun and hit him again with the rake, tines down, this time with no ragged quilt to obscure his pain-twisted face. She was Alec’s own Boudicca.

“At least put some shoes on. Your feet will slip off the pedals. I’ll wait.” Alec tried to smile.

She had been so brave. Alec had listened to her taunt Bauer from his painful perch in the car, struggling to come to and save the day. Well, it was Mary who’d saved it, but she wasn’t done yet, poor girl.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Off you go, lass.”
And hurry
.

He sat against the wall and pondered his future. If he lived. Once the bullet was removed, things could still turn septic. He might even lose his arm. And then how was he to embrace Mary, waltz with her to a real orchestra, hold himself over her as he sank into her sublime depths?

She would have killed Bauer for him if the man was not already breathing his last. The malevolence in the doctor’s eyes had been more deadly than the wild shot he fired. It was over. There would of course be some legal mumbo-jumbo, but Edith was avenged and Mary was safe.

Alec would ask her to marry him. He couldn’t let a woman like Mary Arden Evensong get away.

If she could forgive him for placing her in such an untenable situation.

He’d make it up to her. Furs. Jewelry. A car of her own.

What was he thinking? Apart from the car, Mary’s head would not be turned by trinkets. She was far above his touch in every way that mattered. He had never met a woman like her, and never would again. Raeburn men were not total idiots, even if they were attracted to unsuitable women across the centuries. They saw what they wanted, and went after it. His own father had spied his tenant’s daughter riding across a field, and that had been that. Their love hadn’t lasted, but then Alec’s mother was nowhere near as sensible as Mary.

But you didn’t tell a woman she was sensible and expect a reward. Sensible meant wearing plimsolls on the beach so you wouldn’t cut your feet and carrying an umbrella at all times to ward off sun or rain or whatever nature threw at you. Keeping lists and sticking to them. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Alec wanted to walk barefoot on a beach with Mary, feel the sand and tide between his toes. To stand in the garden in a rainstorm and smother her with kisses. To toss the list away and do what felt right.

His cock stirred, and he chuckled. He might live after all.

He heard the kitchen door slam. Mary burst into the stable, wearing button-up boots and a dress that was
not
buttoned up. Her hair was still in its wild braid, and he reluctantly admitted he was glad she hadn’t spent much time sprucing up.

He smiled up at her. “Ready for your adventure? What a lot of them you’ve had the past few days.”

“Don’t remind me. This entire affair screams, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’”

Alec felt a stab of dismay. “Are you regretting accepting my job offer?”

“Of course not. Regrets are pointless, aren’t they? One makes mistakes, learns from them, and moves on. Speaking of moving on, we don’t have time for idle chatter, Alec. Can you get up on your own?”

“I’ll never know until I try.” Was he one of her mistakes, quickly to be forgotten? Alec hoped not. The shed swam around him as he lurched up. Just a few steps to the car. He could do that. Nothing to it. Perhaps he should try to bend over and pull the starting handle. No, not wise. Mary would have to do it.

He held on to the bonnet. “I already checked everything before Bauer knocked me out. The radiator’s full, and the petrol cock is open. The hand brake is on—you’ll have to release it so we can back out.” Alec slid into the passenger seat and tried to steady himself without knocking into any levers.

“What should I do first?” Mary asked, looking anxious.

“You’ll have to turn the crank a few times. Keep your thumb under the handle—we wouldn’t want you to lose it if the car backfires. Then switch on the magneto.” Mary looked at him blankly. His hand wavered in its general direction. “See? It’s in the A position, which means it’s off. As soon as the engine turns, move it to the M angle.”

Mary made a few less-than-robust assaults on the starting handle. Miraculously, the engine sputtered to life, and she hopped into the car. Alec pointed to the various knobs and gauges, all the while sounding very much like he’d committed the driving manual to memory, which he had. Every car manufacturer did things their own way—there was no uniformity in the fledgling industry whatsoever. While Alec had mastered his Pegasus, other car models were complete mysteries to him.

“Ease back on the throttle . . . close the carburetor choke . . .” He went on, gently chiding her when she was too tentative. They had rolled backward out of the stable and were perilously close to smashing into the trees. “Brake!” He reached over and helped her shift gears, wincing.

“I can do it!”

“Of course you can.” Her hands were riveted to the steering wheel. She was as white as parchment, each golden freckle standing out across the bridge of her nose. Maybe his best strategy was to pass out and wake up at Raeburn Court and not witness her terror, for her terror was contagious.

He hoped they wouldn’t blow a tire on this rutted track, which was perfectly possible. Of all the parts on a modern automobile, tires were the least reliable. Alec didn’t fancy trying to pump and patch one in his current condition.

He shut his eyes, not caring to see how fast they were going. Whatever the speed, it felt too damn fast. The Pegasus tipped with less regularity than other sorts of cars, which is why he had purchased one, but with his luck today, they’d wind up in a ditch. He lifted one eyelid to see Mary’s grim profile, a martial light in her hazel eye. Against all odds, she seemed to have the vehicle in control.

“You’re doing beautifully!” he shouted over the revolutions of the engine.

“I am, aren’t I?” she shouted back, her eyes not leaving the road. “I’ve read some books, you know. On engines.”

Of course she had. She’d probably read books on radio waves and X rays for amusement. He pressed his hand onto the lumpy bandage trying to stanch the flow of blood. He was light-headed, and every jarring bump on the road made him feel nauseous. At least he had no breakfast to vomit up—they’d never gotten around to it.

He’d hated to leave her at dawn. She’d been curled on her side, her face flushed, her braid a copper tangle. Alec had had every intention of coming back to bed and waking her up properly with loving attention, but getting the fires lit and relieving himself had taken priority.

And then he’d gone into the stable to check on the car for his little surprise.

Alec should have anticipated that Bauer would come after him, but he had honestly thought they’d be safe hidden away at the gatehouse. He’d counted on time alone with Mary. So much for best-laid plans.

Beneath the leaves and brightening sky, the day was really very fine, if he didn’t think about Josef Bauer’s body lying on the stable floor. Mary took the corners carefully, and it wasn’t too long before they saw the stone turret of Raeburn Court peeking over the treetops. Emerging from the wood, they passed innumerable sheep that were kind enough not to trespass on the road, and eventually rolled into the cobblestone court near the converted stable where the Pegasus made her home.

Alec tried to sit up. “Slow down now, brake—that’s it—and let down the sprag once the car comes to a full stop.” There was little likelihood that the car would roll backward, but they had come this far and Alec did not want to crash into any outbuildings.

“You’d better honk the horn for help,” Alec said, gritting his teeth. Now that they were at a standstill, the world still moved all around him. He was reminded of his sea voyage to the Americas when he was a boy, and for one brief moment wished his father were still here to take care of things.

Mary did as she was told, with the foot horn as well as the one connected to the steering wheel. The noise split Alec’s head in two.

“I’m going inside,” Mary said. “Don’t move.”

“Nae a chance o’ that, I’m afraid,” Alec said. His eyes rolled back and he slumped onto the dashboard.

He came to as he was carried to his own bed, jostled by Mac and Oliver Palmer. The two of them together were not up to carting a man his size up a flight of stairs, but with Mary barking orders at them, they had no choice.

Alec wondered where the workmen were. Fortunately he didn’t hear hammers, which would have been the pièce de résistance to his headache. Perhaps it was still too early. He had no idea what time it was.

He was dropped into bed, every bone jarring. He recognized the girl who currently presided in the kitchen, standing mute as Mary told her what to do.

“I’m taking the car to Pitcarran to fetch the doctor,” Mary said.

That woke Alec up. “You are
what
?”

“Oliver will come with me.”

This was news to the young man. “I
will
?”

“Between Mac and Katie you will be in good hands,” Mary said, ignoring Oliver. “Katie will fetch you some broth and tea and Mac will see to your dressing.”

“What if the car breaks down?”

“Mac has already sent one of the grooms ahead. Dr. King will get here one way or another.”

Alec envisioned the whiskery old doctor riding sanguinely next to Mary and failed. King did not hold with modern inventions, or modern “coddling” methods of medicine. Alec might die yet.

Dr. King had had no patience with Edith’s megrims, which had made her ripe for Bauer’s treatments. King had been loudly dismissive of the Forsyth Palace Hotel’s facilities, and resentful of the new doctor in the area. But he should be able to dig a bullet out of a shoulder and prescribe some cod-liver oil, and be more than pleased his competition was dead.

“Are you sure you know how to drive, Mary?” Oliver asked, his voice quavering.

“I got here, didn’t I? I just can’t sit around waiting for the doctor to arrive.”

“It’s downhill all the way,” Alec reminded her. “And when you come back up, if the car starts sliding, pull every knob you can see and put your foot on all the pedals. Something will work.”

Oliver looked green.

“And if worse comes to worst, just jump out,” Alec said, trying to be cheerful. The thought of Mary burning up in a wreck was not something he wanted to dwell on. King would probably pick them up in his carriage—he doubted the Pegasus had enough petrol to get all the way to town anyway, and he decided not to mention the extra can of fuel in the garage.

It would be better if she was out of the way—he was tired of being brave. Like a wounded dog, he wanted to bite and howl and growl.

And he wanted Mac to get his mother’s emerald ring out of the safe in his library. Alec had a proposal to make.

When he felt a little better.

Chapter

37

“Y
ou told me your father kept a whole fleet of cars in his garage,” Mary grumbled. She brushed the dirt off her no-longer-white dress. Oliver was beyond brushing. He lay on his stomach peering at the engine under the front seat of the Pegasus. His hands were covered in oil. Even his golden curls were not exactly gold anymore.

“Well, he does, but we have a chauffeur, Mary! A mechanic who knows what he is doing. And I haven’t lived at home in a year, remember? I was thrown out. Disinherited. Have I enough money to purchase a car of my own? No, I have not.”

Poor Oliver. She should not be taking out her frustrations on him. “Well, you’re getting a raise and a promotion.”

“Not soon enough. What were you thinking to try to get to Pitcarran on your own?”

“I’m not on my own. I have you.” In truth, Mary did not know what she had been thinking. She had been absolutely desperate to bring Dr. King back as quickly as possible. She couldn’t bear to look at Alec’s anguished face or see the bright red blood coursing from his shoulder. What if he bled to death?

She had—in simple terms—panicked. Fled, in the guise of going for help. She’d been a complete coward. And now she was stuck on the side of a mountain, the car smoking, and loyal Oliver furious with her. She burst into tears.

Oliver scrambled up in a dust cloud and hugged her. “Hey, hey. None of that! Haven’t you told me time and time again that tears are useless?”

“Wh-what if Alec dies? It will be my fault!”

“How can you say that? You got him back to Raeburn Court.”

“But I sh-should have taken care of Bauer when I could. I was too afraid to look under the quilt to see if he was dead.”

“And look what happened when you did take a peek. He could have shot
you
.”

“I never leave anything to chance. Never.” Mary had been a planner all her life. How foolish of her to count on magic when she tripped Bauer in the stable. He might just as easily leaped up, more enraged than ever. It had been sheer luck that the gun had gone off as he batted at the quilt.

But not quite enough luck.

“Look, Mary, Bauer was a madman. You can’t be expected to go around killing people with rakes. It just isn’t in your nature.”

“But I
wanted
to kill him. It was the most frightful feeling.” She had raised the rake and brought it down. Twice. But each time, at the last minute, she had not given it her all.

Except for the third time.

She didn’t know what was worse.

Oliver ruffled her hair. “Of course you wanted to kill him. He hurt the man you love.”

Mary pulled the handkerchief from Oliver’s coat pocket and blew her nose. “I do love him. But it’s useless. Useless as tears.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s Alec Raeburn, and I’m Mary Evensong!”

“Well, it’s good you haven’t lost your marbles completely. You do know your name.”

She shoved against him. “Be serious, Oliver. It will never work.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you’ll let class distinctions stop you. You are equal to anyone. You are starchy enough to be a duchess.”

“I don’t want to be a duchess. Maybe I can be his mistress,” Mary said, sniffling.

“What rubbish. I’ll have a talk with him when we get back,” Oliver volunteered, his smile boyish and oh so naïve.

“You will not! Or I’ll fire you. I mean it.”

“You do not. But I won’t say anything to Raeburn if you don’t want me to. Just work your feminine wiles on him—he’ll come around.”

“I have no feminine wiles.” Mary hiccoughed.

Oliver grabbed the handkerchief and wiped the mucus from Mary’s upper lip. She must look a fright. “I admit, they wouldn’t work on me, especially since you’re all blotchy and wet, but don’t sell yourself short, Mary. Now that you’re not wearing a wig and those silly glasses and brandishing an umbrella, you’re a very attractive woman.”

“Now who’s talking rubbish.”

He shoved her back. “You’ll have to give me an even bigger raise if you want me to keep complimenting you. Come on, Mary. Raeburn is crazy about you. At least that’s what Mac says.”

Mary’s heart fluttered. My word, it really did—it just wasn’t a literary convention. “He did? What did he say?”

“I can’t remember exactly. But Mac said ever since Lord Raeburn met you, he’s been much—how did he put it? Lighter. Although, let me tell you, carrying the man up those stairs wrenched my back. You will have to give me a vacation from this vacation once this is all over.”

Mary threw her arms around Oliver, almost knocking him down. “You can have as much time as you like. Thank you for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” She gave him a kiss on his cheek, which he wiped off at once, leaving a grease streak.

“I suppose we’d better leave the car and turn back. That doctor should be coming along any second.”

Mary listened for the sound of any sort of activity below. “That’s if we’re on the right road. There was that fork—”

“You saw the signpost as well as I did. Pitcarran. Five miles.”

“But what if someone turned it?”

“Oh, yes, because that’s what Highlanders do for fun. Really, Mary . . .”

They bickered all the way back up the hill, until they came to the signpost in question. Mary’s feet were killing her again, and she vowed if she ever lived a normal life in the future, she would do it barefoot. And if Alec’s big gentle hands could massage her feet, so much the better.

After a brief argument where she wanted to turn left and Oliver right, he pointed. There, over a stand of trees, was a smidgeon of Raeburn Court’s stone turret. On the right.

Edith’s room.

Don’t think about Edith, Mary said to herself. Don’t think about Bauer. Don’t think about Alec bleeding to death. Where in
hell
was that doctor?

The open front gate was in sight by the time they felt the hoofbeats on the road and heard the jingling of a harness. To Mary’s dismay, Dr. King didn’t slow down for a second and they had to leap into the culvert to avoid being run over.

“I say!” said Oliver, his fist shaking.

“It’s much better he go straight to the house instead of stopping. Look at us—would you pick us up?” If Mary looked half as disheveled as Oliver, they must appear to the world as a couple of tinkers. Oliver had tossed his oil-stained jacket on a bush a mile back, saying he was hot, and Mary had no hat, black or otherwise. They were both drenched with perspiration and filthy. “Let’s hurry,” Mary said. What was one more blister?

* * *

F
our hours later, Mary was at Alec’s bedside, washed, wearing one of Katie’s ill-fitting dresses, and frantic. Alec was still, his skin the color of fresh plaster. Dr. King had given him a sleeping draught, which was working only too well.

He didn’t have to wake up for very long, just enough for Mary to tell him she loved him. He didn’t have to love her back, but when he came to London, she would be available. Very available.

With the agency’s help, he could get his household in order, and then he might have time for a few trips to Town. Mary didn’t even mind that she might have to share him with an actress or two—

Oh, that was utter nonsense. She would want to scratch their eyes out.

Or pick up a rake.

This bloodthirstiness was a new emotion, and Mary was rather afraid of herself. She was supposed to be calm. Careful. Cautious. All those good
c
characteristics seemed to be absent at the moment.

Wake up wake up wake up.
This was the second time today she prayed that Alec would return to consciousness. She didn’t want to cause a setback to his recovery, but she really did want to speak to him.

And then she would go. Mac could get them to the evening train—in the estate’s reliable carriage. Someone could send her belongings from the gatehouse when they got around to it. Mary didn’t mind traveling back to London looking like a kitchen maid, minus the apron. It was sweet of Katie to offer her clean clothes after the awful way she’d harangued the poor girl over Alec’s care.

She would run away, also for the second time today. She was still a coward.

She took Alec’s cold hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

He didn’t squeeze back.

Dr. King said he should be just fine—the bullet had missed anything vital, and that with rest and rehabilitation, Alec’s arm would be as good as ever. They were to watch for fever and signs of infection, as one would after any injury of this nature, but he was confident that Alec would pull through.

Mary had met Alec’s brother Evan, a rangy redhead with a magnificent—if one liked such things—beard. He had come back from seeing the magistrate, and once Alec was patched up, went right back down the mountain to tell Sir John to call off the search and give him the latest grisly details. Presumably people were taking care of removing Bauer’s body, but Mary had not bestirred herself to look out the window.

Alec would be in good hands. He had his brother. Mac. A skeleton staff that was loyal. A crusty old doctor who had cared for him since he was born.

He didn’t need her underfoot.

“Alec,” she whispered. “Please wake up before I have to go.”