The Devil Wears Tartan (27 page)

He led her across the courtyard. A few men pushed their way to the front of the crowd. Marshall stopped and greeted the men individually. From time to time he’d clamp a man on his shoulder, expressing his thanks.

One man, however, startled him so much that he could do nothing but stare.

“Jacobs?”

“Your Lordship.”

His valet was attired in a kilt and gray shirt, and holding a dirk, all the world like a warlike chipmunk.

“It’s good to see you, Jacobs.”

Jacobs smiled. “And you, Your Lordship.” In the next second, he raised the dirk and rushed forward.

Marshall threw up his arm to block the knife and felt the blade slice through his shirt and the skin beneath.

He feinted left, and when his valet struck out in that direction, Marshall dove for Jacobs, his shoulder a battering ram into the man’s stomach. In seconds, Jacobs was on the ground, the knife skittering across the dirt.

“What the hell is going on?” Marshall asked, pinning Jacobs to the ground. His arm was bleeding, but not badly. A little deeper, however, and Jacobs could have done real damage.

“You killed him,” Jacobs said. “I know you did. I heard you.”

There was no reason to ask the question. Marshall knew that the only person Jacobs would kill for was Daniel.

“I sent him to China with you, and you killed him.”

Marshall reared back and looked at the man he’d known all his life. “I didn’t kill him, Jacobs.”

“You promised to keep him safe.”

How many times had he made that banal comment? How many reassurances had he given, how many platitudes had he uttered in his life of diplomacy? Too many. Words always meant something, if not to the speaker, then to the listener. Jacobs had somehow believed that Marshall had the power of life and death, that being the Earl of Lorne also gave him the ability to spare Daniel from torture, and ultimately death.

If he could have saved Daniel, Marshall would have.

“I’m sorry, Jacobs. He was under my command, and I should have protected him. That I didn’t, that I couldn’t, will be a regret I shall have to live with all my days.”

“I’m supposed to be content with that? Regret?” Jacobs stared up at him, his face twisted into a mask of hatred. “You should have died along with him,” Jacobs said.

“And you tried to ensure I did, didn’t you?” He stood, looking down at the valet. “Leanne wasn’t the only one who knew my mother took Chinese herbs to help her pain, was she?”

Jacobs looked up at him. Two men reached down and hauled the valet to his feet. “You should suffer for what you did.”

“I have, even without your intervention, Jacobs.”

Marshall turned and began to walk away, intent on reaching Davina. The look on her face, however, changed from concern to alarm as she stared behind him.

“Marshall!”

One moment the solid ground was beneath his feet, and the next, he was flying over the end of the promontory, the dizzying vista of the valley below him. The earth sloped just before it ended, and it was that fact that saved him. He fell, hard, began to slip, feet and hands clawing for something to hold on to. Davina’s screams echoed his own panic.

A chunk of slate, chipped and broken from centuries of exposure to the elements, jutted from the promontory, and he gripped it like a lifeline, his feet swinging free.

Evidently Jacobs had wrestled free of the men who’d held him, and pushed Marshall off the edge of the cliff. The momentum had carried Jacobs over as well, because he was only a few feet above Marshall, his arms around a boulder, his legs kicking at Marshall’s hands.

Marshall heard his name, knew Davina was calling to him, but he could spare her only a glance. Her face was stark white, her beautiful eyes wide with terror.

Not now. Not when he’d just begun to believe in the future. If death hadn’t taken him in China or in the last year, Marshall wasn’t about to die now. Not here. Not now.

A rope was tossed in his direction, slapped against his face, and hung beside him. Marshall heard his men above him shouting encouragement, but above all he heard Davina’s voice.

The earth began to move, a low creaking sound the only warning. The boulder Jacobs was using to hold on to started to pull free of the earth. Jacobs didn’t scream; he didn’t make a sound as he fell. He was simply gone, vanished into the air.

Marshall looked up at the sea of faces above him. He gripped the rope with first one hand and then the other, and hooked a foot in the trailing length of it. The cut that Jacobs had inflicted was bleeding profusely, but Marshall shut out the pain, and the protests in the muscles in his arms and chest. An inch at a time, he made his way to the top. Arms reached out to pull him to safety. Seconds later, he was flat on his back on the ground, Davina holding him, rocking him back and forth with his face pressed into her bodice.

Not an altogether unpleasant place to be.

He lay there for a moment, and then sat up, wrapping his uninjured arm around her as he surveyed his rescuers.

“It seems you’ve saved me not once but twice,” he said to the men of Ambrose.

More than one man looked in Davina’s direction, and he knew what they didn’t say. He stood, his legs still a little shaky, and held out his hand to her.

There were some things that should be marked on a summer day: the purity of morning light, the gentle breeze whirling among the rocks and weeds, the emerald green of leaves and grasses, the brown of the tree trunks, the brilliant blue of the sky, and white, fluffy clouds being pulled apart by upward winds.

Davina could smell dust, and a hint of rain, and flowers as sweet as a child’s prayer. She felt the warmth of the sun on her face, and the usual discomfort of her shoes. The breeze tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze.

Her footsteps were measured and calm. No one could tell that she could barely walk for the trembling in her legs. Her heart was racing frantically, and her hands still shook.

She’d almost lost him again.

Once they were in the carriage, however, she ceased being circumspect. She didn’t care if Nora or Jim witnessed her tears, or if they thought she was too demonstrative with Marshall. She simply didn’t care. The two of them would simply have to get used to the idea of her being excessively cordial around her husband. Her husband. Was there ever a better title for anyone? Love. Perhaps that was better.

Well. Her aunt certainly wouldn’t like this. Her husband was sliding her onto his lap. Instead of correcting him, however, she wrapped her arms around his neck and wept against his neck.

“Davina. It’s all right.”

“I almost lost you again,” she said, clutching his shirt
with both hands. When he flinched, she sat back and stared at his bloody shirt in horror. “Twice. I almost lost you twice.”

“You’ll never lose me, I promise.”

“Your arm needs treating,” she said.

“You can be my physician once we reach Ambrose.”

She nodded, separating the cloth to look at the wound more closely. Normally she didn’t mind the sight of blood, but his injury made her shiver as if it had been done to her. No, it was worse than if it had been done to her. He was hurt.

He wrapped his uninjured arm around her, and held her close.

“It’s all right, my love. Truly it is.”

She nodded. “I know. You’ve suffered worse. You’ve endured so much more. But I don’t want you hurt,” she said fiercely. “You should never be hurt again.”

She truly didn’t care that Nora and Jim were no doubt listening with great interest.

“I shall promise to be very careful from this moment on,” he said, smiling.

Before she could answer, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her head down for a series of very, very passionate kisses.

All in front of the servants.

Oh my.

“A
re you very certain that Mrs. Murray isn’t guilty of something?” Davina asked, looking from Marshall to her aunt.

Theresa looked amused, as did Marshall. She really should have been irritated at their response, but she was still basking in the relief that Marshall was alive and well.

Two weeks had passed since the siege of the Black Castle, and Marshall had been healthy ever since. They’d found a supply of a brownish-looking powder in Jacobs’s room and could only guess that it was the source of Marshall’s dreams and hallucinations.

As to Mrs. Murray, she hadn’t disappeared entirely. She’d taken a coach to Edinburgh and from there a train to London.

“Mrs. Murray’s only sin was in accepting a post from one of your wedding guests,” Theresa said. “Without giving proper notice.”

“I still think we should count the silver,” Davina said, unconvinced.

“However, if she hadn’t sent word to Garrow,” The
resa said, “there’s every possibility that Jacobs might have succeeded in poisoning Marshall. As it was, taking him away from Ambrose truly saved Marshall’s life.”

Davina considered that for a moment. As much as she wanted to refute Theresa’s words, there was something in what she said.

“Very well, she did something correct, but only accidentally.”

Marshall reached out and squeezed her hand. They were seated in Theresa’s home, the parlor warm against the stormy day. She and Marshall sat on the sofa together, with Theresa opposite them.

Her aunt looked tired, but then she’d just recently returned from London.

Davina didn’t know quite what to say to the news she’d brought. Garrow obviously needed to be punished for the hideousness of his deeds, but he was still Marshall’s uncle.

She glanced at him. In the last two weeks they’d truly become wed. She slept in his room every night, the mattresses having been taken from the walls. She’d learned that Marshall had a deliciously wicked sense of humor, an appreciation for the most aromatic of cheeses, and an intellectual curiosity that she could only admire.

Marshall had arranged for Jacobs’s body to be returned to Ambrose, and the man was buried in the small churchyard in the neighboring village. They had attended the short service, and when it was done, Marshall had spoken with the cleric and paid for a grave marker to be erected.

Not once had he commented on Jacobs’s actions. It was not until she had broached the subject that he spoke of his valet.

“He was grieving. Sometimes pain can make a man do stupid things. If he’d talked to me about Daniel, I would have known how much he blamed me, but he rarely mentioned him.”

Could she have been as understanding, or as empathetic? Probably not, because Jacobs had almost succeeded in his undertaking—to kill Marshall.

“Garrow should be punished for giving the order to send Marshall to an asylum,” Davina said.

“I think his fate is decided,” Marshall said. “The Chinese will see to it that Garrow is punished for his crimes.”

“How can you say that? You were their prisoner; you know what they’ll do to him.”

He looked away, staring off into the distance as if to see the past. “I do,” he finally said. “But I also know that when a man chooses an action, he chooses the result as well.”

“Spoken like a true diplomat,” Theresa said, smiling. “And a wise man.”

“I doubt Garrow chose to be surrendered to the Chinese,” Davina said. “I doubt he saw that far ahead.”

“Then who should be blamed?” Theresa asked. “The British for believing that slavery is abhorrent? Or Garrow for being too narrow-minded to see the consequences of his actions?”

“Garrow,” Davina said. “For selling people as if they were vases and boxes.” She sighed. “But we are a family,
aren’t we? I’ve a reputation for shocking behavior. Marshall is mad, and Garrow is the worst of us all.”

“You don’t include me,” Theresa said.

Davina eyed her aunt with some amusement. “I think, perhaps, you are the most surprising. You tell a lovely tale about how Garrow was caught, but I think there is more to the story than we’ll ever know.”

Theresa only smiled.

T
he Earl of Lorne’s adventures in China were mirrored after real historical events in which representatives of the Crown were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The remaining prisoners were freed only after the Summer Palace in Peking was burned to the ground.

Opium is highly addictive, inducing passivity in the smoker. Heavy smokers have an average life expectancy of five years from the time they become addicted. It is estimated that there were almost forty million opium addicts in China by 1880.

Many Chinese herbs have hallucinogenic properties—among them Yang Jin Hua, Nao Yang Hua, Gan Di Huang, and Hong Hua. What Julianna Ross took for pain, and what made Marshall so ill, was probably corydalis, which has both analgesic qualities and can produce hallucinations.

In the nineteenth century a flourishing trade known as the Coolie Trade existed that was tantamount to slavery. Chinese peasants were kidnapped and sold for the sex trade. Or they were offered a five-year
indenture, during which they were overworked and treated abysmally.

In Egypt an experienced scribe often wrote down instructions on life for the younger scribes. However, Hamenup was my invention, as well as his poetry.

In nineteenth-century Scotland, an emergency certificate could be issued by one doctor to keep a mental patient under observation for three days. After that time, a certificate signed by two physicians was required. Private asylums were created to treat patients who could not—or weren’t wished to be—cared for at home. Brannock Castle is modeled after one such private asylum.