The Runaway McBride (3 page)

James combed his fingers through his hair. Disoriented, he looked around him. Slowly, enlightenment dawned. He recognized the setting. He should. It was practically his second home, this superior brothel just around the corner from Crockford’s on St. James’s Street. This was how he spent most of his nights: an hour or two gambling in Crockford’s, then seeking oblivion either in a bottle of whiskey or with a woman, sometimes with both.

“It was the mirror,” he muttered, speaking to himself. “Who put that bloody mirror on the ceiling? It’s . . . obscene.”

He blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the grotesque picture of Granny McEcheran’s reflection in the mirror peering down at him. He’d had too much to drink, he told himself. He was working too hard. His grandmother’s death had affected him more deeply than he realized. No one had ever loved him as she had loved him, and now he felt bereft. She’d only been gone four or five months, but never a day went by when he did not think of her.

Hearing his own words, he winced. God in heaven, how much whiskey had he had to drink, anyway? If he went on in this vein, he’d soon be blubbering like a baby. He’d loved his granny well enough, he supposed, and she him, but not enough to explain how he’d lost his grip on reality.

Impatient with himself, oblivious of his nakedness, he reached for his clothes and began to dress.

Celeste—not her real name—edged onto a velvet upholstered chair and watched him warily. If it had been anyone but Burnett, she would have been out the door, but Burnett was openhanded. She could make more money in an hour with him than she could in a week with her other customers. And he wasn’t demanding. A quick romp on the bed seemed to satisfy him. He spent more time drinking his whiskey than he did in pleasuring his body. In fact, it seemed to her that pleasure was the last thing on his mind. Nor did he care which girl he got, but they all made sure that they each had their turn with Burnett. And why not? It was easy money, and fair was fair.

That’s how she thought of him now: easy money. Not so the first time she’d set eyes on him when she was the new girl. Her calloused heart had damn near melted. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the harshly sculpted features that she’d seen in pictures of medieval knights. Someone had told her that he was a baron, and she could well believe it. As it turned out, he was one of those barons who had made his fortune in railroads, quite an achievement for a man in his early thirties. But his money didn’t seem to bring him happiness. For all his wealth and good looks, he was still a dour-faced Scot.

An openhanded dour-faced Scot, she reminded herself, and if she wanted to earn her money, she had better do her job.

“You’re not leaving already?” She edged off the chair and let her chemise slip to the floor. “You’ve only just got here.”

He looked up with a distracted air. “What?”

She was beginning to lose her temper. She had her pride. She wasn’t a common prostitute. She was a high-class lady of pleasure whose beauty and talents were much in demand by the well-heeled clients who patronized the Golden Fleece. A girl couldn’t just walk in off the street and get a job here. Beauty was commonplace. She’d had to learn how to walk with an air, talk without an accent, dress and undress so that her clients would know they were paying for quality. Burnett paid more attention to the quality of the whiskey than he did to the girls.

She jiggled her shoulders and thrust out her breasts. “Look at me, Burnett.”

He looked.

She hadn’t met the man yet whom she couldn’t bring to a quivering climax just by jiggling her well-endowed anatomy. This time, she jiggled her hips. That was better. Now she had his full attention. But just when she thought she had him, he took a step back.

He pressed a hand to his brow. “This isn’t going to work.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “It’s not you. It’s me.”

She thought she understood. “Burnett,” she chided, “don’t you know that the best way to forget one woman is to lose yourself in another? I can help you forget.”

He shrugged into his coat. “Tell that to my granny,” he said.

She was puzzling over his words when he pulled a wad of notes from his pocket. After peeling off two, he slapped them into the silver salver on the dresser and left without another word.

 

 

It was only a five-minute walk to his house in St. James’s
Square, and he made straight for home like a fox going to ground. In the last little while, he’d been plagued by nightmares, but this was the first time he’d hallucinated when his eyes were wide open. He gave himself the same lame excuses—he was drinking too much; he was working too hard; he wasn’t getting enough sleep—but deep down he feared the worst. Either he was going slowly out of his mind, or Granny McEcheran had sunk her teeth into him, and she would never let go.

He knew what Alex would say. His cousin would point out that this was the age of progress and that there had been amazing advances in every field of knowledge, including medicine. He should consult one of those new doctors who called themselves psychiaters and who studied the workings of the mind.

He didn’t need a psychiater to tell him what was wrong with him. He’d been perfectly well until Granny McEcheran had whispered her prophecy in his ear:
“Your bride is in mortal danger. You must find her, or she will surely die.”

He hadn’t understood until the nightmares started. Not his bride, but McBride, Faithless McBride, as he’d taken to calling her in his own mind. She’d promised to wait for him, but her promise turned out to be worthless. For the last eight years, he’d deliberately suppressed all thoughts of her, but that was before the nightmares started. Now he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

His butler opened the door before he had time to lift the knocker. That was Hallam, always anticipating his master’s needs. He was in his sixties, short and rotund, with a ruddy complexion and silver hair. The only fault that James could find with his butler was that he talked too much.

“There’s a fire burning in the library, sir, and—”

James waved him away. “Not tonight, Hallam. I think I’ll go straight to bed.” He crossed the hall and made for the stairs.

“Shall I bring you your usual nightcap, sir?”

James hesitated on the bottom step and rubbed the furrow from his brow. “Ah, no. Not tonight.”

For once, Hallam was speechless.

As he climbed the stairs, James flung over his shoulder, “Coffee, Hallam. And lots of it.”

Upon reaching his chamber, James flung himself into a chair. In spite of himself, his eyes were drawn to the cheval mirror that was positioned to one side of the long window. Gritting his teeth, he got up and ambled over to it. He hadn’t known how tense he was until he looked in the mirror and saw nothing more frightening than his own reflection.

He grinned sheepishly and shook his head. “The drink is getting to you, Burnett, m’lad,” he said. “Go on the way you’re doing, and you’ll come to an early grave.” He turned from the cheval glass, then turned back again. “By the way, Granny, just in case you’re listening, if you want me to find the McBride, you’re going to have to tell me where to look. She doesn’t want to be found, not by me. She made that abundantly clear. So, please, no more nightmares and no more apparitions. You practically scared the hell out of me tonight when . . . ah, well, we won’t go into that. A man is entitled to a little privacy, and—” He stopped and shook his head. “What am I saying? It was nothing but an alcohol-induced hallucination. From now on, I’m going to stick to milk and lemonade.”

After a drinking a pot of coffee sans whiskey to flavor it, he was feeling quite virtuous and sober enough to attempt sleep, so he got into bed and closed his eyes. He tossed, he turned, and eventually he focused his thoughts on the delectable Celeste. A man would have to have one foot in the grave not to be affected by her luscious form. So what was his excuse? Demon drink? The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. But it was more than that. He craved something genuine, not something bought and paid for. There wasn’t much difference between the women at the Golden Fleece and the debutantes who hoped to snare a husband before the season ended. All they wanted was to part him from his money. At least at the Golden Fleece he wouldn’t be committing himself to a life sentence.

His thoughts drifted, and he slipped into an uneasy sleep.

The McBride. A mane of copper curls. White throat and shoulders. Eyes as deep and clear as a Scottish loch.

And a heart as black as sin.

One part of his mind knew what would happen next, and he tried to tear himself from his dream, but it was no use. Faith’s image faded, and he was there again, standing outside the wrought-iron gates that barred his entrance to the grounds of a ruined stately mansion. As is the way of dreams, he passed through the gates without opening them and found himself in a marble foyer with a cantilevered staircase rising in a graceful sweep to the floors above. Faith was somewhere here, and she was not alone. A figure was waiting for her in the shadows, someone with hatred in his heart and murder on his mind.

Fear rose in James’s throat, and he began to run. He wasn’t in a house, he was in a labyrinth. He was shouting Faith’s name, but all that came back to him was the panicked echo of his own voice. He knew that he was doing the wrong thing, that he should slow down and look inside his own mind. He had the gift of second sight, but he had never used it, had never wanted to until now.

A terrible scream pierced his mind, and he knew he was too late.

He wasn’t too late. The future could be changed. Isn’t that what Granny McEcheran tried to impress upon him? He could change the future.

Gasping, soaked with sweat, he dragged himself from his nightmare. Hunched over, he sucked air into his lungs in great, greedy gulps.

He wasn’t drunk, and he wasn’t hallucinating. He was stone-cold sober. For his own peace of mind, he knew what he had to do. He had to find Faith McBride if only to satisfy himself that she wasn’t in harm’s way.

As the minutes passed and the nightmare faded, he began to feel foolish. He debated whether he should do anything at all to find Faith. Their meeting was hardly likely to be cordial. Finally, he shrugged. He wasn’t planning to climb the Matterhorn. All he wanted was a good night’s sleep, and if that meant he had to renew his acquaintance with Faith McBride, so be it.

 

 

The following morning, James was at breakfast when his
cousins came calling. Rising to his feet, he said, “This is a surprise. I was thinking of calling on
you
. Sit down, sit down. You’ll join me for . . .”

His voice died away as his gaze shifted to Gavin. His cousin sported an ugly bruise on his left eye. “Brawling? ” said James. “I thought you had outgrown that.”

Gavin laughed. “All in a good cause. Macduff, say ‘how do you do’ to your cousin.”

James’s gaze dropped to the floor. A huge, shaggy sheepdog with smiling eyes offered him a paw.

Alex said, “Gavin found the dog in a lane off Covent Garden. Some young bucks thought it would be fun to beat him to death. Gavin disagreed.”

“So did Macduff,” said Gavin. He was at the sideboard, helping himself to a hearty breakfast.

“What were you doing in a lane behind Covent Garden? It’s notorious for footpads and thugs.”

“I was seeing a lady home.” Gavin flashed James a grin. “I won’t be doing it again. She didn’t like Macduff any more than he liked her.”

James sank back in his chair as both cousins filled their plates. He was reflecting that Alex and Gavin were more like brothers to him than cousins. They’d spent a good deal of time together when they were infants, as was to be expected when their mothers were sisters. They’d fought a lot; they’d laughed a lot; they’d grown up to be the best of friends. They were still the best of friends though not as easy and carefree as they once were. It was to be expected, he supposed, now that they were older and had followed different paths. Gavin had yet to find his way; he, James, was the man of commerce; and Alex . . . well . . . Alex was a bit of a mystery. He was too athletic to spend all his days behind a desk. Working for the government could mean many things. And there were those calluses on his fingers.

As Alex sat down at the table, Gavin shoved a heaping plate of sausages and kidneys under Macduff’s nose. “Now mind your manners,” said Gavin. “Remember you’re a gentleman.”

Macduff cocked his head to the side, then nibbled delicately on the end of a sausage, but as soon as Gavin’s attention was diverted, he swallowed the sausage whole, then started on another.

“Some gentleman,” said Alex.

“Macduff,” said James musingly. “Didn’t he kill Macbeth?” When Gavin looked at him blankly, he elaborated, “Shakespeare, Gavin, or haven’t you read the play?”

“Of course I’ve read the play.” He looked at the dog, then back at James. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking of Granny’s prophecy, and that is ridiculous. I pulled the name out of thin air. I could just as easily have called him . . .” He fumbled for a word. “Dog.”

Alex sighed.

James rested his linked fingers on the flat of the table. “It has started, hasn’t it?” he said. “Granny’s prophecies? They’re coming home to roost.”

“You, too? ” said Alex.

James nodded. “I have frightful dreams.”

Gavin said glumly, “I have visions, premonitions. I didn’t go into that lane by chance. I could see in my mind’s eye poor Macduff cornered by those louts. I went into that lane with my cane swinging, determined to rescue him.”

“It’s the same for me,” said Alex. “For the past few months, I’ve been trying to unmask someone who has been leaking information to the other side. I caught him in the act, but it wasn’t my powers of deduction that unmasked him. I . . . sensed what he was up to and set a trap.”

“Who knew,” said James laconically, “that the War Office was so exciting?”