The Devil Wears Tartan (11 page)

Victoria’s England was a strange place. Theresa would have shocked Martinsdale if she’d mentioned the word
bull
instead of the more acceptable term
male cow
, but Martinsdale saw nothing wrong with urging whoredom on her.

“You want me to encourage him to my bed. If that were not enough, you want me to spy on him?”

She knew her cheeks were flushed. She was of an age when heat raced through her body like a wildfire, indicating that nature was nearly done with her.

“Yes, Mrs. Rowle, I do. The Empire appreciates your patriotism.”

Some years ago, she’d been widowed at the Battle of Balaklava. Ever since then she’d been struggling to find a purpose in life, one that would enable her to want to wake in the morning. She still missed James, and would until the day she died, but she’d found her purpose.

All in all, she didn’t do much for the Crown. There were advantageous friendships she’d cultivated in London; she’d attended a number of important parties. When she heard something of interest, she reported back to Lord Martinsdale. Sometimes she suspected that the information was valuable. Rarely did she ever find out if she’d been of use.

Now, however, Martinsdale wanted her to pose as a seductress.

“I have long thought that we did not use you to your full advantage, Mrs. Rowle.”

She stood, advanced on Lord Martinsdale’s desk, placing one hand on either side of a rather ornate brass and crystal inkwell. The silly thing belonged in a lady’s boudoir, not on the desk of such an important personage.

“I cannot do this, Your Lordship.” She’d preached decorum to Davina from dawn until dusk. How was she supposed to transform herself into a fallen woman? Dear God, what if Davina found out?

He sat back in his chair and regarded her somberly.

“In all honesty,” he admitted, “we didn’t think about it until your niece married. A rather opportune marriage, that. I congratulate you on your cleverness.”

She didn’t know whether to leave the room that instant or stay in place, hoping that he would say something less idiotic and of more value. She opted for remaining.

He began fiddling with a few of the papers on his desk, stacking them and making a point of appearing incredibly distracted. But Theresa knew what kind of mind worked behind those bushy white eyebrows.

“It is an ideal situation, Mrs. Rowle. You are the ideal woman. If you do not act for your country, then for God’s sake act for those hundreds of people the blighter has sold into slavery.”

She abruptly sat down.

“Is there no other way?”

He smiled, and this time she was certain he wasn’t going to answer. But he surprised her.

“We’ve detained his latest ship, but someone must have warned the captain. The hold was empty, and if
there were poor souls on it once, they’re at the bottom of the ocean now. But we cannot continue to engage in acts of piracy, Mrs. Rowle. We are the British Empire.”

He looked so absurdly puffed up that she couldn’t prevent her next words. “I do wish you’d been so forceful in regard to Garrow’s nephew. The Earl of Lorne suffered a great deal for his patriotism. Does Her Majesty know the extent of what happened to him?”

For the first time since she’d entered the room, Lord Martinsdale looked uncomfortable.

“I do not believe so. Despite the fact that Her Majesty is a formidable figure—”

“Do not continue with that thought,” Theresa said, holding up a hand. “Do not say that she is a female, and therefore must be protected. It is only men who are under the impression that women are protected from the world. We are not sheltered from any of life’s inevitabilities, Lord Martinsdale.” She fixed a look on him of such irritation that he glanced down at his desk rather than at her.

“It was an ill-suited remark, and one for which I humbly apologize.”

In her decade-long relationship with the man who sat opposite her, she’d never heard him come close to an apology.

She nodded, absolving him with the gesture. “But the fact remains, the Queen does not know of Marshall’s sacrifice,” she said.

“She knows the whole of it, Mrs. Rowle, but not the details.”

“The details?” She stared at Lord Martinsdale in
credulously. “That’s what you’re calling torture?” The man didn’t answer. “Why wasn’t Garrow stopped when his nephew was taken? Did you simply ignore what he was doing at the time?”

He leaned back in his chair and studied her over the steeple of his fingers.

“We actually didn’t know the extent of Ross’s involvement in the coolie trade until the earl was taken. It was the Chinese who gave us the information. They believed sending the earl to them was a diplomatic slap in the face. Only after they were convinced we knew nothing about Garrow Ross’s slave trade did they consider releasing the earl.” He smiled. “It also didn’t hurt that we burned their palace in Peking.”

Theresa stood, grabbed her reticule, and frowned down at Lord Martinsdale.

“What kind of proof do you need?”

Martinsdale was quick to reply. “Get me anything that will indicate his contacts in Macao or his knowledge of what is being transported on his own ships and I will ensure that he pays for his activities.”

She nodded. “How?”

Lord Martinsdale looked uncomfortable again. “We have an agreement to turn him over to the Chinese, Mrs. Rowle.”

She thought about that admission for a moment. “Tell your superiors and tell the Queen if you must, that I will do my best.”

Lord Martinsdale had the temerity to smile as she left the room.

N
ora was still shaking when she returned to Davina’s room, although she’d changed both her dress and her apron. There was, thank heavens, no more blood on her.

“I was coming to wake you, Your Ladyship,” Nora said, her voice sounding choked. “The physician grabbed me and said I was needed in the earl’s room. I’ve never seen the like, all that blood and the earl acting like he didn’t know what was happening.”

“Well, it’s over now, but our exploration of the attics can wait for another day. I want you to go back to your room, Nora.”

“My room, Your Ladyship?”

“Take the day to rest,” Davina said. When it looked as if Nora would fuss, she only held up her hand. “I shall not take it from your wages, Nora. Not when it’s my suggestion. Go on now.”

Nora looked as if she’d like to protest, but she finally only nodded, leaving the room and closing the door behind her silently.

Davina was grateful for the respite. With Nora gone,
she didn’t have to pretend to be composed. She could weep to her heart’s content, or simply stare out the window, worried and uncertain about what to do.

For nearly two hours that’s exactly what she did.

He’d told her he was mad, and she’d refused to believe it. What did she do now? Believe him?

You are too stubborn, Davina.
An echo of her father’s voice as well as her aunt’s.

She’d always been a little proud of her obstinacy, deeming it a character attribute. After all, stubbornness indicated a fixed set of ideals, a certain purpose, and control over one’s thoughts. Had she been wrong all along? Was it truly a virtue or simply a flaw?

Had she seen only what she wanted to see and not the truth? Even so, she couldn’t banish the thought that the man who’d touched her so tenderly could not be a raving lunatic the next moment. It didn’t seem possible, even though she had the proof in front of her.

Was he a lover or a madman? Could he be both? He was her husband. He could not be mad.

Why was she cowering in her chamber like a silly schoolgirl? If she believed in him, then why was she allowing Garrow, the physician, and a score of servants to care for her husband when she was more than able to do so?

Davina bathed her face, smoothed the wrinkles from her dress, and inspected herself in the mirror before leaving her chamber and marching down the hall to the earl’s suite.

She’d expected to encounter some sort of resistance but there was no one in the corridor, and when she
opened the door to his room even Marshall was gone.

There was only one person in the room, and it was Michael, the carpenter, carefully removing the last of the glass from the window.

Even the bed linens had been changed, the counterpane perfectly smooth. There was not a sign of blood anywhere.

“Where is the earl?” she asked.

Michael turned and bobbed a half bow as he performed his task. “I don’t know, Your Ladyship. He goes riding of a morning. You might send for the stable master.”

She’d no intention of sending for anyone when she was more than capable of going in search of the man herself. She thanked Michael and made her way down the stairs, out the door, and to the road leading to the stables located some distance from Ambrose.

By the time she entered the wide double doors of the stable and sought out the stable master, she was past being worried and well into being annoyed.

“Have you seen the earl?” she asked.

At first the older man looked nonplussed, but he recovered quickly. “I don’t know, my lady. I’ve not seen him today. Or yesterday, for that matter. Mr. Ross I put in a carriage not five minutes ago. Ready to see the back of this place, he said. Wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed in Edinburgh for another year. We don’t see much of him round about. Only when something special happens.”

His grin lit up his face. “Begging your pardon, my lady. Like your wedding.”

“You’ve no idea where my husband is?”

“No, my lady. Like I said, I haven’t seen him.”

She turned and was leaving the stable when he called her back.

“Have you gone to that place of his?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What place?”

“Where he has those statues and odd things. Aidan’s Needle. Where he holes himself up. They call it the Egypt House.”

“The building beside the obelisk?” she asked.

“That’s the one. You’d best try there, then. It’s where he goes most days. Especially on a day like today with the storm and all.”

Only then did she realize that it had begun to rain.

Heavy drops of rain splashed against the ground and marked the dirt with a slight depression as they hit. The Egypt House was on the other side of the hill. She’d no choice but to walk through the rain, and doing so did not add to her mood.

She’d been worried about him. She’d cried for him. She’d spent an hour, maybe two, in such confusion that she’d doubted herself, her emotions, and even her wits. In all this time, he’d been fine. Better than fine, if he was well enough to get out of bed and seek respite somewhere else.

She stopped in the middle of the lawn and stared up at the gray clouds, uncaring that her face was being washed by the rain. At this moment she wanted to shake her fist at the sky. Or perhaps at Marshall himself.

Aidan’s Needle was nearly black, the rain sluicing off the obelisk.

Davina faced the Egypt House. Where in this sprawling structure was Marshall? Should she even try to find him? He’d made it all too clear that they were not to have any contact but the type that he initiated.

What was her life to be? Was she to spend her days attempting to find tasks to do, and her nights waiting vainly for her husband?

The door to the Egypt House remained closed, a barrier representing her marriage. She was not to go inside. She was to be patient and malleable, a dutiful wife with no curiosity and little courage.

She strode toward the door and turned the handle, surprised that it opened easily. No one greeted her. No one told her she wasn’t welcome. Not one voice was raised in protest for her appearance. The silence was so acute that she would have been very surprised to find anyone in the building.

But the mystery of Marshall’s whereabouts faded as she turned her head and viewed the whole of the building, her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

The structure had been gutted. The second and third floors were gone, leaving a deep balcony on both floors overlooking the cavernous space, which had been given up to Egyptian relics. Huge stone statues, columns that stretched from the floor to the cupola ceiling, clay pots of every size and description, odd wooden figurines of men with the heads of jackals, and hundreds of statues of cats.

In the middle of the space were four large coffins.

She took a step away, clutching at her skirt, and made an effort to control her breathing.

A shaft of sunlight parted the clouds, speared into the Egypt House, bathing a section of mural. Four men in formal pose, their ebony bodies oiled, carried trays of amber and gold beads, dozens of ostrich eggs, and copper-colored amphorae to the gods. Caskets of myrrh, daggers sheathed in gold, deep purple grapes were brilliantly colored, as if the artist had done the work yesterday.

She might not have been in Scotland at all, but in Egypt. Or perhaps some odd combination of the two, a place carved out of this time yet steeped in antiquity.

She was sodden, her skirt dripping a path on the stone floor, marking her progress. The building was cool, and she was beginning to shiver. She wrapped her arms around her waist. She shouldn’t have come without her shawl. She shouldn’t have gone walking through the rain. She shouldn’t have allowed annoyance to dictate her actions. Perhaps she shouldn’t even be here now.

Was there anything she
should
do? Leave, perhaps. Go back to her room like an obedient and unwanted wife. Begin her own series of journals, just like Julianna’s. A wiser woman would. A wiser woman would not have gone looking for her husband.

Oh bother. There had been more repercussions for her obedience than her wantonness. She’d been meek and mute, and all she’d gotten for her troubles was to find herself married. Married to a man who insisted upon placing her in a neat little compartment where she had no intention of remaining.

She might as well be shameful. When she’d shocked the matrons of Edinburgh, all that had happened was she’d been banished from society. All in all, she’d been
content with her books, and with being saved from attending endless rounds of boring entertainments.

“Marshall?” She spoke barely above a whisper, but the sound echoed in the cavernous space. She spoke his name again, this time a little louder. The sound reverberated and then ended in a curious dead silence, as if swallowed in all the statuary and fragmented pieces of columns.

There was no answer, no sound at all but the scrape of her muddy slippers against the stone floor.

The rain had subsided to a drizzle, and she was oddly disappointed as she left the Egypt House. She was in the mood for rain, for heavy thunderstorms and pounding thunder. She wanted lightning and danger, and wanted to be out in it, challenging the elements. Maybe she’d stand on the highest hill and dare God to send her a thunderbolt. She felt reckless in a way that was unfamiliar.

Not the best mood to encounter Mrs. Murray.

Davina entered Ambrose, nodding her thanks when a maid helped her close the heavy door. Mrs. Murray was standing on the staircase, ostensibly inspecting the portraits on the wall for placement and dust. She glanced away when Davina looked in her direction.

“Mrs. Murray,” she said, passing the woman on the stairs. She hesitated, wondering if ignoring the woman would be the best course of action. A problem ignored was never solved, however.

Mrs. Murray simply nodded, but that was the only acknowledgment she made of Davina’s presence.

“I need to meet with you,” Davina said. “About Ambrose.”

Mrs. Murray didn’t answer.

“Tomorrow morning?”

“If you have any problems, I’d be happy to assist you now, Your Ladyship. However, I have always discussed day-to-day matters with the earl.”

“That was before he was married,” Davina said. She was in the mood for a battle, and Mrs. Murray was proving to be the perfect combatant. “As the Countess of Lorne, I believe I should be consulted now,” she said, but to her disappointment, Mrs. Murray only nodded and smiled.

In the next moment, the other woman descended the staircase, leaving Davina staring after her. For a moment she contemplated following the housekeeper and then decided against it. Instead she returned to her room to find Nora waiting for her.

“I couldn’t stay in my room, Your Ladyship. Not if you needed me.”

Had her aunt paired her with Nora because the maid possessed the same streak of stubbornness as Davina?

“I’m feeling a little under the weather,” she said, hoping that Nora would take the hint and leave her.

“And it’s no wonder,” Nora said, grabbing a towel from the bathing chamber and beginning to scrub at Davina’s wet hair. “You’ll catch your death being soaked like that, Your Ladyship.”

Within moments she was out of her clothes and wearing one of her sturdier wrappers. This one was not designed to attract her husband’s attention, for which she was devoutly grateful. She couldn’t bear another one of the Paris creations that made her look like a pastel cloud.

Nora bent to start a fire, and Davina didn’t stop her. A roaring blaze would be a delight right now. Even if it was summer, she was chilled to the bone.

She sat back against the window seat and turned her head, watching the rivulets of rain travel across the glass. Without too much effort, she could transport herself through the window and into the ornamental gardens, past the well-manicured lawn. But she couldn’t escape, however much she wished it.

He was here. Her husband. Her fascinating, enigmatic, utterly handsome, and charming husband.

“I think we need to send for your aunt, Your Ladyship,” Nora said abruptly.

“Why is that?”

“I’m to keep you safe, and I don’t think I can do that in this place.”

Davina turned to look at the maid still kneeling in front of the fire. There was a look of such irritation on Nora’s face that Davina knew it had nothing to do with the fact that the fire was catching slowly.

“Your diligence is commendable, Nora, but I don’t need you to keep me safe. Nor do I need to send for my aunt. I’m a grown woman.”

Nora stood and placed the matches on the mantel. “I think we should leave, Your Ladyship. I think we should go back home.”

“This is home,” Davina said. “Like it or not, Edinburgh is no longer home. Ambrose is.”

Nora looked around her, the expression on her face leaving no doubt as to what she felt about her surroundings. When she spoke, however, it was to voice an opin
ion not of Ambrose but of its master. “They say he turns wild, and no one knows when.”

“Does anyone know why?” Davina asked. She focused her attention outside. The rain had subsided, and what was left was a gray and cloudy day.

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

Rather than discuss her husband with the maid, Davina only shook her head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“You need to dress, Your Ladyship,” Nora said.

“In a moment.” The view from this window faced the rolling hills and woods that adjoined Ambrose’s perfectly manicured lawns. In autumn, when the trees had lost their leaves, she’d be able to see the obelisk, and the very top of the roof of the Egypt House.

Nora, however, was not done with her revelations. “The earl doesn’t like his servants about much. He’s a great stickler for privacy. He speaks with each person he employs and makes it all too clear that they aren’t to carry details of him anywhere, else there will be punishment.”

Davina turned to look at her. “What sort of punishment?”

“I don’t know, Your Ladyship. There haven’t been many who’ve left Ambrose. The pay is better than in Edinburgh, plus His Lordship tucks away a bit of money for the future. It’s a fair place to work, if you don’t mind the strangeness of it.”