Lady Beauchamp's Proposal (37 page)

She reached out and touched his cheek,
suddenly wishing that she wasn’t wearing gloves. “I was wondering
how long we would stay in Edinburgh. I must confess I grow a little
weary getting about like a black crow, always wondering if someone
I used to know will recognize me.”

James clasped her hand and angled his head
to kiss the sliver of bare skin between her sleeve and glove,
making her shiver. “I understand entirely. And I’ve been thinking
about that too. Perhaps, after Christmas and Hogmanay, we could
travel further afield, to Italy or Austria. Or indeed wherever you
would like to go—”

The scrape of a footstep on the flags was
loud in the stillness. James looked back over his shoulder.

“Dinna mind me guv.” A rough male voice
bounced off the broken stones around them.

Elizabeth glanced beyond James’s broad
shoulder and gasped, fear clogging her throat. “James,” she
whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s the man from Queen’s
Park.”

* * * *

Rothsburgh immediately spun around, his
whole body tensed and senses battle wary. He eyed the plainly
clothed Scotsman with suspicion. “This is a private tour,” he
stated in his best military voice as he pulled Beth directly behind
him. “You have no business being here.”

The stranger smiled and took a few more
steps toward them, palms spread upwards in a gesture of apparent
supplication. “Och, I hadna known tha’. My friends an’ I mean you
an’ the lady no harm.”

At his words, two more burly looking men
filled the archway of the west-facing door, the only entrance and
means of exit in the whole ruined abbey.

Bloody hell.

Whatever was going on, it was bad. Very
bad.

Rothsburgh’s jaw tightened and he felt the
muscles of his arms bunch beneath his coat. Without breaking eye
contact with the first interloper, he spoke in a low voice over his
shoulder. “Beth, when you can, make a run for it back to the main
entrance.”

Clenching his fists, he then took a few
steps toward the chancer from Queen’s Park. If he could engage all
three men, distract them, then perhaps Beth would have a clear path
to the door. “I’d suggest you be on your way, all three of you. The
Duke of Hamilton is a personal friend of mine, as is Colonel Dixon,
the Commanding Officer of the Scots Guard. And as I seriously doubt
you have any legitimate reason to be here, I’d suggest you leave.
Now.”

The chancer shrugged. “It doesna matter who
ye ken, master high an’ mighty.” His face suddenly split into a
gapped tooth grin as he pulled a pistol from beneath his coat and
aimed it straight at Rothsburgh’s chest.

Fuck.

Rothsburgh took another step forward. If he
could get close enough, he could knock the pistol out of the
chancer’s hand.

“James. Don’t.” He felt Beth’s hand on his
arm and she stepped forward so that she was beside him.

Christ,
no.

“What do you want?” she demanded, addressing
the armed stranger. Her chin was raised and her eyes blazed with
silver fire.

Despite his gut-clenching, marrow-deep fear
for her, Rothsburgh couldn’t help but admire her bravery, misplaced
though it was.

The chancer inclined his head. “You, of
course, Lady Beauchamp.”

What? How in the devil’s name had her
bastard of a husband found her?

They’d been so careful…

Rothsburgh glanced at Beth. Except for two
spots of high color on her cheeks, her face was ashen.

“My husband hired you,” she stated
flatly.

“Aye. Lord Beauchamp’s carriage awaits fer
ye in the Forecourt, milady.”

Beth raised her chin a fraction higher. “And
if I refuse to go?”

“Weel…” Beauchamp’s hired thug shrugged.
“Then yer
friend
gets a wee bullet in his rather wide
chest.”

Beth’s eyes blazed. “How dare you threaten
Lord Rothsburgh?”

“Beth. Don’t take another step.” Rothsburgh
watched the chancer’s face—a muscle tightened in the man’s jaw. For
all his outward bravado, the thug was tense, nervous. “He may be
lying.”

“I can’t take that chance, James. Not when…”
She turned to him, her grey eyes shining with tears. “Not when your
life is at stake.”

“No.” Frustrated, impotent anger and despair
tore at his gut. He grabbed her by the arm. He knew he was rough,
but he didn’t care. He couldn’t let her leave.

“I have to go. What else can I do?” she
whispered. The stark expression on her face told him that this was
tearing her apart as well.

“Verra touchin’ you two. But I do no’ have
time fer this. Lady Beauchamp, come with me now, or I swear I will
put a hole through his lordship’s heart.”

Rothsburgh forced his voice past the hard
lump of anguish in his throat. “This isn’t over.”

“I love you, James.” Beth stretched up and
touched her trembling lips to his in a fleeting kiss. It was like
being caressed by the breath of an angel.

And then she withdrew her arm from his and
walked toward her captors. And out of his life.

For now.

Holyrood Abbey might be a ruin, and his
heart so black with anger, it was like the sun in eclipse, but with
God as his witness, he would take her back.

* * * *

Every step Elizabeth took away from James
felt like a stab in her heart. Like she was dying by degrees as her
life’s blood leached out of her.

Although James had misgivings, she didn’t
doubt for a moment that Hugh had found her.

The men filling the entrance to the Abbey
were dressed similarly to the man with the pistol. Black coats,
nondescript clothes beneath. But unlike the chancer—James’s smiling
would-be assassin—their expressions were flat and stony, like the
flags beneath her feet.

On reaching them, one of the men grasped her
upper arm tightly. She barely felt it. “This way, milady.”

As he steered her through the arched doorway
and along the path toward the Forecourt, she heard the chancer
speak again, his voice clear as a death knell in the silence of the
ruined church. “Lord Beauchamp said to make sure he doesna follow
us, MacCrae.”

No.

Elizabeth’s blood froze and her heart
stuttered to a halt as blind terror gripped. She twisted in the
thug’s grasp, sucked in a breath to scream. But the thug had
anticipated her reaction, and before even a shred of sound escaped
her, she found his large meaty hand had been firmly clamped over
her mouth and nose.

She kicked and flailed. Screamed anyway and
tried to bite her captor’s hand. Even over the sounds of her own
futile struggles, she could still hear scuffling and grunting. A
crunch and a dull thud.

Nausea welled within her.

Please, God, please. Let James be all
right.

“Enough,” the thug growled in her ear, “or I
will have to silence you, milady.”

She stopped thrashing, but hot tears blurred
her vision and her breath came in short ragged gasps, like she
couldn’t breathe. Like she was dying.

No more sounds emanated from the Abbey.

“That’s better.” The thug kept his hand over
her mouth as he pulled her round the corner of Mary’s Tower and
into the Forecourt where a plain black carriage waited.

As they approached, another hired thug threw
the door open, and she was bundled inside by her captor. And then
the door slammed.

Elizabeth could see little, heavy blinds
were drawn across the windows and her eyes had not yet adjusted to
the dark interior. But as the carriage lumbered forward, and she
all but fell onto a seat, she recognized her husband’s voice all
the same.

“My dear Elizabeth. So lovely to see
you.”

“Call off your thugs, Hugh. If Rothsburgh is
harmed—”

“Tsk, tsk, my dear. I really don’t think you
are in any position to be dictating terms about how I should treat
your lover do you? Not after the merry dance you’ve led me.”

Hugh’s face was in deep shadow making it
impossible for Elizabeth to read his expression. He seemed to be
wearing a cloak with a high collar, a wide-brimmed hat tilted at
such an angle that his eyes were hidden, and a thick scarf that
obscured the lower half of his face. But she couldn’t mistake the
heavy sarcasm in his voice. She imagined his lip curled into the
aristocratic snarl she knew so well.

When she didn’t immediately respond to his
jibes, he continued—a cat playing with a mouse. “Besides, I
promised Blaire that I would repay the bastard in kind. As a
gesture of my…appreciation for his rather helpful information.”

Although Elizabeth knew from experience that
it was better not to react to Hugh’s taunting, she couldn’t help
but gasp. So that’s how he had found her so quickly. Blaire
had
recognized her at Eilean Tor after all. He must have
returned to London and told Hugh.

But she couldn’t let Hugh get away with
having Rothsburgh beaten to a pulp. She swallowed past the sickness
rising in her throat. “Hugh. For the love of God. Hurt me if you
must. But don’t hurt James.”

“My God, Elizabeth. You
love
him?
That sap? And who’d have thought such a thing was possible from a
cold fish like you.” Hugh chuckled, and Elizabeth felt her cheeks
flame, and her hands clenched into fists. She knew without a shadow
of a doubt that had she been holding a weapon—a blade, a pistol, a
cudgel, anything at all—she would have used it on Hugh then and
there.

But her fury quickly abated as Hugh’s
laughter suddenly dissolved into a bout of coughing. He clutched
the scarf to his mouth, and as the fit eased, she could hear him
wheezing.

“Hugh. I know that you—”

“Shut it, Elizabeth…I don’t…want…to talk
about it.” He paused, his shoulders heaving with the effort to suck
in enough breath. When he spoke again, his voice was so breathy she
could barely hear him. “But don’t worry. I won’t try to
fuck
you if that’s what you’re concerned about…Dr. Morton was very
clear—I just…I want you to come home.”

He knows why I left him.

His assertion was crude, but for once,
Elizabeth believed him. Despite her anger, her heart compressed
then expanded oddly in her chest. She’d never seen Hugh like this
before. Here in the confines of the carriage, his fear was suddenly
a palpable thing.

Isabelle had been struck down by a severe
secondary attack of the pox. So severe she couldn’t bear it. What
if Hugh was in the throes of it right now? He must be, if he was at
last acknowledging the fact that physical contact with him was
dangerous.

She fisted her hands in her skirts,
resisting the unfamiliar urge to reach out to her husband. Dr.
Morton had warned her about the disease, of its stages and when it
was most contagious. If Hugh had a rash…even though she had gloves
on, she was reticent to touch him. And he would probably reject any
physical demonstration of kindness from her anyway. She sifted
through the snarled mess of her wildly conflicting thoughts and
emotions, trying to think of something to say that would comfort
him even just a little. That he would accept.

But at that moment, the carriage drew to a
halt. They had barely travelled ten minutes from Holyrood. Hope
surged. If she could slip away…

Hugh reached out with a large gloved hand
and gripped her forearm surprisingly tightly for someone so
obviously sick and breathless. “Don’t even think about it,
Elizabeth. You’re my wife, and never again are you going anywhere,
unless I say so.”

* * * *

Hugh had taken rooms at Boyd’s Inn, a rather
small but exclusive inn that had once been a Bishop’s residence.
With a stab of irony, she realized it was not even half a mile to
Holyrood Palace. If she’d been able to get past Hugh’s small army
of hired henchmen, and his other staff, she could so easily have
gone back to James.

But Hugh was having her watched so closely.
She would not even make it a few steps down the corridor before she
would be seized again. She certainly hadn’t a hope in heaven of
making it down the Canongate.

If only she could discover how James was. No
matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t suppress the image of him
lying broken and bleeding in a cold, dark corner of the abbey
ruins.

And I haven’t even said goodbye.

She surreptitiously brushed away the tears
that had slipped onto her cheeks, and glanced over to Hugh who sat
before the fire, drinking brandy. He still wore his scarf, but it
couldn’t hide the ravages of the pox. An angry red rash covered his
exposed cheeks and forehead, and she could see a scattering of bald
patches across his scalp where clumps of his golden hair had fallen
out. He still wore his gloves.

What a shocking disease. Although the prick
of her conscience was sharp, and the pull of long-neglected duty
inexorable, she couldn’t suppress the urge to see James. To make
sure he was all right.

To say goodbye. And to tell him to forget
her.

She abandoned her seat in a far corner of
the room, and steeled herself to approach Hugh. She wasn’t worried
that he’d touch her—she still believed the declaration he’d made in
the carriage. But since they’d arrived at the inn, he had barely
said a word to her, had not even glanced her way. He was withdrawn,
still so unlike himself that she hardly recognized him. She had
expected more derisive sarcasm at the very least. But this quiet
brooding…it unnerved her.

She sat in the wing chair opposite him, and
he flicked her the barest of looks.

“If you’ve come to beg me to let you go back
to Rothsburgh, you can just forget about it,” he said without
looking at her.

She clasped her gloved hands in her lap and
let the silence stretch, trying to work out what to say that would
make him change his mind. To give a little for once. But she had
never understood this man, or the way his mind worked. He was an
enigma. And she imagined she was the same to him. Like a mismatched
lock and key, they had never fit together.