The Husband Hunt (3 page)

Catriona glanced up, her gaze clashing with Knight's as if she had sensed the suspicious turn of his thoughts. An earl's daughter, indeed. A moorling, whatever that was supposed to mean. She had not made the arduous journey here to strengthen family ties, he thought as he fished the ring from his pocket and handed it to Olivia. The young woman wanted something.

"I wouldn't have come without notifying you beforehand," she explained awkwardly, "but circumstances forced us to leave our home with little preparation."

"What circumstances?" Knight asked, his predator's instincts on the prowl.

Both Olivia and Wendell subjected him to looks that said he was an insensitive oaf for even asking such a question.

"Circumstances can happen to anyone, Knight," Olivia said in undertone, clutching the ring tightly in her hand, "even to a young lady of a gold pedigree."

"She shot a pistol into the air to summon her servant," Knight said in disbelief. "What sort of lady behaves in such a way?"

"A resourceful one, I would think," Wendell said.

"The gardener did approach her with a musket, my lord," Thomas pointed out. "And it was my pistol. I'd asked her to hold it."

"I might not have fired the gun at all," Catriona explained, "except that he startled me as I was brushing my hair, and the pistol rather went off by itself."

"There," Olivia said in triumph. "She was brushing her hair to make a dignified introduction, Knight. Is that ladylike behavior enough for you?" She tucked her arm into the crook of Catriona's elbow, giving a pleased little chuckle. "Come into the house, cousin, and don't let my brother frighten you. He isn't half bad when he's at home."

Catriona stole a glance over her shoulder at him as Olivia led her toward the mansion. He could have sworn she gave him a fleeting smile, but that would be rather dangerous of her, challenging him, and before he could call attention to it, a huge dog came bounding out of the woods, took a flying leap, and knocked him into Wendell.

"Dear God," he said, "where did that come from?"

"Tis the young lady's," Thomas said, grabbing the panting animal by the scruff of the neck.

"Well, put it in the kennel with the other dogs."

"The young lady willna like that, my lord."

Knight raised his brow. "That's too deuced bad, isn't it? I do not want this beast frightening my household—"

Before he could finish, the deerhound sprang free, or, rather, Thomas released it, pretending to look alarmed as the dog shot between the two young women. Olivia screamed, then started to laugh again. The Scottish female was laughing, too, as the hound jealously nosed Olivia from her side. Thomas hurried after them, clearly not about to abdicate his role as guardian.

Wendell shook his head in amusement. "And so family matters have taken an interesting turn."

"If she is who she claims to be," Knight said, shaking his head.

"Can you doubt it? My God, she has Lionel's eyes, in case you hadn't noticed."

Knight hesitated. "I noticed."

"She'll be good for Olivia, don't you think? It was hard enough for her when she lost the baby, but with Lionel not here to help her accept—"

Knight turned on him. "Do you not find it peculiar that she, an earl's daughter, appears out of the mist dressed like, well, I don't know how to describe her?"

"Reduced circumstances, Knight."

"Maybe, Wendell, but what am I supposed to do with her? What am I to think?"

They led her into a beautifully
appointed drawing room, all blue and rose brocade glowing invitingly in the candlelight. She picked up a glass figurine of Persephone on the table, then wandered to the window, tracing a pattern with her fingertip on the damp pane at the precise moment that Lord Rutleigh entered the room. She edged toward the sofa where his sister sat, surprised by the shimmering excitement that stole over her. She hadn't dreamed that an English lord could be so, well, so dangerously virile.

She pretended not to notice him as he moved toward her, but her senses tingled with shocks of awareness. How wonderful it would be to rule other people with a few well-spoken words. She thought he was going to reproach her for touching the figurine, and she waited, half hoping to hear his voice again. She had stood up to more intimidating men then he, handsome English viscount or not, and she would prefer not to show that his aristocratic hauteur affected her in such an embarrassing way.

Kindness, less common in her life, also affected her. She glanced at Lady Deering and felt a bewildering flood of emotions. The woman was so sincerely sweet and gentle that Cat could not help liking her. Yet grief had begun to wear Olivia to a shadow, and if nothing intervened to save her, she would eventually disappear. Cat could sense her ladyship's spirit hovering between this world and the next, just as her own foolish mother's had lingered before she finally realized that the man she had loved her entire life did not love her. And then Mama was gone, leaving a void that had never been filled.

"What in the devil's name is this?"

His
voice. Dark, with a resonance that sent a pleasant chill down her arms. She watched him from beneath her lowered lashes. He was examining the broken heart she had traced on the window, which had begun to drip beads of moisture like pearlets of blood.

"It looks like a window, Knight," Olivia said, giving Cat a sly wink.

"Someone has drawn something," he said in an annoyed voice.

Wendell sprawled out next to Olivia on the sofa. "That's hardly a crime, is it?"

"It's a heart," he said.

Catriona leaned forward. "Well, so it is. Perhaps it's a sign."

"A sign of what?" he asked.

"A sign that you need to wash the windows," Wendell said.

The viscount turned to stare at Cat, and she forced herself to meet his disapproving look, even though she could feel the power of his presence down to the soles of her feet. It wasn't just that he was big in a physical sense, which he was. But he seemed to have complete command of his surroundings. She felt suddenly vulnerable and insufficient, as if he sensed she was not what she claimed, and she knew then that it was only a matter of time before he stripped her of her secrets. He did not seem to be a man who gave his trust easily.

"Where did you live before you came here?" he asked, pausing to take a chair. His voice might be casual, but he'd laid the question like a steel trap.

Thomas moved up behind her. "With the current Earl of Roxshire, my lord."

"And before that?"

Thomas looked away. "She stayed with her mother's people until the young earl took her into his care."

"Has the young lady suddenly lost her voice?" Knight asked coolly.

"She has not," Catriona said.

"Then please answer my questions."

"I just did," she said.

Olivia frowned in disapproval, leaning back comfortably against Wendell's outstretched arm. "Can your interrogation not wait until tomorrow, Knight? Howard has just brought in refreshments."

He glanced at Catriona, his gaze hooded. "If you prefer."

Olivia motioned her to the sofa. "Here. Sit between Wendell and me. We promise not to subject you to any more questions tonight. Come, let us just enjoy your company. Have a little brandy if you like. How happy we are to meet you."

Cat felt Lord Rutleigh examine her as she obeyed, wedging herself between Lady Deering and the duke, whose aquiline features reminded her of a fairy-tale prince. Och, she must look like a lump of coal amid a pair of diamonds, dirty and drab. She frowned at her scuffed shoes, her big toe practically poking through the worn leather. She'd best not take that brandy. She needed her wits about her to fend off the viscount's interrogation.

Wendell cleared his throat. "I'm not going to bite, you know."

"What?"

He leaned closer to her. "You're as stiff as a statue, my dear. I said that I am not going to bite you."

She looked at Knight, isolated from the others in a huge wingback chair in the corner. "What about him?" she whispered.

"Knight?" Wendell's blue eyes softened. "I cannot say what he will do. He's not quite the same these days, but in all honesty, I can say that I've never seen him bite anyone."

"Would you two kindly stop whispering?" Knight asked dryly. "It gives the impression that one is being talked about."

His sister gave him an admonishing smile. "People do have other matters to discuss besides you."

"No one discusses me much anymore," he said, breaking into a grin. "I have risen above gossip."

"Only because you've never been caught at your misdeeds yet," Wendell said. "Your time will come, I predict. Some journalist will unearth a juicy scandal from your past."

Knight lounged back in the chair, reminding Catriona of a feudal lord with his chiseled face half-shadowed in firelight. "There are only three people who know me well enough to relate the details of my past misadventures. Lionel is one, and he is gone, enjoying a divine adventure of his own, I hope. Olivia is another, but she is the soul of discretion." He paused. "That leaves you, Wendell. Are you threatening to tell?"

The duke laughed. "I would in a minute if it didn't mean implicating myself. There's a certain vicar in Dartmoor who is still out for our blood."

"Lucky for you both that you were wearing masks," Olivia said with an affectionate laugh.

"Only over our faces," Wendell said, sharing another grin with Knight. "The other less identifiable parts were left exposed."

"Oh, Wendell, stop it," Olivia said, hitting his hand. "You'll give her a horrible impression of us."

Catriona felt the tension begin to seep from her coiled nerves at their easy camaraderie. How different this was from her world, from her earliest years of distraught parents with sick children crowding into her mother's cottage for an herbal cure, her life with Uncle Diarmid and his unruly Border raiders, then her most recent years with James, in the castle watching him destroy all he held dear. Aye, she could sense the caring beneath their banter and wished to be part of it. But her tongue was tied in knots. What did she know of witty conversation, she who had never been properly courted by a man? She whose only genuine skill would mark her as an outcast in their glittering society where an ill-chosen remark could ruin a young woman's chance for acceptance?

She looked up in chagrin as she realized that Lord Rutleigh had just spoken to her and was awaiting a reply. He studied her in amusement, his gray eyes mirroring the flames. "I don't suppose you have any secrets, Catriona?" he said, one dark eyebrow lifting in mock suspense.

"Probably none as interesting as yours," she said.

"Leave her alone," Olivia said lightly. "She looks exhausted, and we are rude to keep her up after what must have been a harrowing journey. Come on, Catriona. I shall tuck you into bed myself."

"Come to think of it, I am dead tired. You are very kind, Lady Deering." She rose, eager to escape the perceptive curiosity burning in the viscount's eyes.

"Isn't she?" he murmured, his fingers steepled beneath his strongly molded chin. "Yes, rest, cousin. In the morning, we shall discuss what to do with you."

There was a moment of silence. Then Olivia, who until then had given Cat the impression that she was the epitome of a subservient English lady, turned on her brother like a tigress protecting her cub. "The matter has already been decided, Knight. There is nothing to discuss."

Olivia whisked her upstairs with an astonishing air of determination for one so frail, the deerhound watching from the hall. "We must do something about your wardrobe, Catriona. Oh, I'm sure that heavy plaid is perfectly acceptable in the drawing rooms of a Border estate, but your figure is far too lovely to hide beneath that dull, shapeless wool."

"Not to offend your judgment," Catriona said, "but there isn't much of anything to hide. Uncle Diarmid said I'm as flat as a griddle cake, with the exception of two currants for a chest. So it isn't the wool that's shapeless. It's me."

Olivia turned outside the bedchamber door and stared at her, her mouth falling open. "This is going to take more work than I thought."

"What is—oh, is this where I'm to sleep?"

She was about to explore the small, darkened chamber when Olivia herded her through another door into a larger room where a coal fire had just been lit. Warm shadows danced on the wallpaper. "That was the antechamber where your maid will sleep."

"My what?"

"Your maid. When we employ one." An experienced woman with a background in current etiquette and fashion, Olivia thought grimly. She was going to have her hands full if Catriona was ever to be ready for a proper season. That the young woman might not care to embark on the social seas did not even occur to her.

"This is your room, Catriona."

"It's perfectly lovely."

Olivia smiled. "It needs a good airing out, I expect."

The room was furnished with a delicate French escritoire, a four-poster rosewood bed, an armoire, and a marble-topped washstand. The chambermaid had already brought up Catriona's small trunk and laid her nightdress on the bed. The air smelled faintly of must and the faded lavender buds that scented the mattress, freshly turned and beaten.

Olivia fingered Cat's threadbare flannel night rail in distaste. "Do you actually wear this?"

Catriona pulled off her buckled shoes and sank backward onto the bed. "Aye. Every night. It keeps the bad dreams away."

"Does it? Well, has it ever been washed?"

"Of course," Catriona said, deeply offended.

"Perhaps we could find a replacement for it. Something prettier to suit you."

"It's embarrassing to admit this, but the fact is, I'm prone to nightmares. Angus and Dugall used to swear up and down that my screaming in the night made their blood run cold. That's vervain sewn in the hem, by the way, not dirt."

Olivia took a deep breath. "Angus and this Dugall—they
slept
with you?"

"Aye. Well, being the only female, I was given the loft. The sounds carried, you ken. The farmhouse was barely bigger than this room, and we all coveted the fire on a winter night."

Olivia felt suddenly faint at the enormity of the task she was about to undertake. "This Angus and Dugall— they were children, then?" she asked hopefully.

Catriona snorted. "Only in terms of mental ability." She sat up, frowning at the look of horror on her champion's face. "I didn't
sleep
with the bastards. My uncle did possess some sense of morality." Though not much, Cat reflected fondly.

"Well, thank God for that." Olivia sat down on the edge of the bed, her brow furrowed in a frown. "How many men shared your home, dear, if I may ask?"

"Ten when I lived with Uncle Diarmid. Twelve or so in James's castle. Retainers, most of those. A damned useless lot, as far as I'm concerned."

Olivia blinked, obviously unable to visualize anyone of the weaker sex living in the midst of this manly congregation. "And your mother did not object?"

"She was dead by then, but when she was alive, no male ever crossed her doorstep except for the fathers bringing in their sick children. My mother never let another man touch her after she bore me."

Olivia was quiet for a moment as if she guessed that there were a few pertinent details missing from this explanation, but she could not figure what they might be. Or perhaps she did not want to know. "When did you meet Lionel, dear?"

Cat leaned back against the fluffy, down-filled pillows; both of them were relieved at the change in subject. "Four years ago, I think. At my brother's castle, the very month I had moved in."

"Would this brother be James?" Olivia asked, her frown deepening. James was the only name she could retrieve from her memory of Lionel's conversation about his Scottish relatives, and she wasn't sure, but it did seem as if there had been a vaguely negative connotation to the name.

"He's the fourth earl now," Cat confided. She struggled modestly beneath the coverlet to change into her nightclothes. "He went off to war about a month or two before Lionel did." She paused, tossing her smock expertly onto the chair. "I'm that sorry he's gone."

Olivia forced a smile and pretended not to notice the undergarment sailing through the air. "But James returned."

"Aye, but he wished that he hadn't. The girl he planned to marry died of fever while he was off fighting for the Sassenachs."

"That is sad." Olivia's face reflected compassion; loss was something she understood too well these days.

"Worse even," Cat said, "was that she died giving birth to the baby he'd put inside her before he left."

Olivia could not speak for a moment. There seemed to be little of life that Lionel's lovely cousin had not witnessed. "What happened to the child?"

"Her parents whisked her away to parts unknown to raise. James searched for months but came back with a broken heart and no daughter to love."

Olivia released a sigh, staring across the room at the fire. "I can imagine. I learned that I was carrying Lionel's baby right after he left, too, but I miscarried in the third month. I am still bereft."

"But you can have other children. In time, I mean."

"Not Lionel's," Olivia said, lowering her gaze. "Oh, goodness, I don't want to start crying now."

"At least you've withstood your grief better than my brother. He's dead drunk all day long, and he berates everyone in sight. He's losing all his lands, too, from gambling and foolish investments."

Olivia compressed her lips. Catriona had definitely been exposed to the darker elements of life. "Then someone needs to take him in hand."