The Runaway McBride (8 page)

It was the person on the other side of Faith that he found irritating: a flaxen-haired gentleman, perhaps a year or two younger than himself, with a mobile mouth that smiled too much. And those smiles were all directed at Faith.

He gave a start when someone touched his arm. Looking down, he saw one of the senior girls, about seventeen years old, eyes vividly blue and full of curiosity, with a Mona Lisa smile dimpling her cheeks. Though she was dressed in the school uniform—a plain gray round gown without embellishment except for its white lace collar—she had an air about her that didn’t seem quite appropriate for a St. Winnifred’s girl. In short, she didn’t look like one of the converted.

“How do you do?” she said. “I’m Dora Winslet, and I believe you are Mrs. Leyland’s nephew.”

James looked at her outstretched hand and bit back a smile. He didn’t expect a curtsy, but this masculine mode of greeting was highly amusing. They shook hands.

“How do you do?” he said. “I’m James Burnett of Drumore. Yes, Mrs. Leyland is my aunt.” He gestured at the chairs facing the podium. “Shouldn’t you be with the other girls, listening to the speeches?”

“Oh, the headmistress warned me off. I ask too many awkward questions, you see. My job is to wander around and take care of visitors, you know, make myself useful. If there is anything you want to know, you need only ask.”

She was a taking little thing, but a tad precocious. He wasn’t surprised that the headmistress had warned her off. He was searching his mind for a suitably intelligent question that would not make him sound condescending or pompous, when Miss Winslet spoke first.

“Are you acquainted with Miss McBride?”

He was taken aback. “Why do you ask?”

Her dimples flashed. “You look at her a lot. Or is it Mr. Danvers you know?”

He drew in a long, calming breath. “I am not acquainted with Mr. Danvers.” Then cautiously, “Who is he?”

“He is the gentleman on the right and is the son and heir of the chairman of St. Winnifred’s board of governors. You may have heard of them, Danvers and Danvers of Fleet Street? They’re bankers.”

He nodded. The name was familiar, and it had just occurred to him that Danvers Junior looked familiar, too. Had he met him at one of his clubs or seen him at the bank? “Is he on the board of governors, too? Is that why he is here?”

“No. We girls think that he is sweet on Miss McBride.”

His voice rose. “Faith?”

“So you do know Miss McBride!”

He shrugged. “I knew her once, a long time ago. I doubt that she remembers me.” He hoped Miss Winslet would take the hint and drop the subject.

She turned to look in Faith’s direction. “Do you think so?” When she looked up at him, she was wearing her Mona Lisa smile. “Do say you’ll come to our class after the luncheon. We’re translating Herodotus, demonstrating our facility with the language, so to speak, but few parents are interested, so we rarely have visitors. It’s not fair to Miss McBride. She goes to a great deal of trouble to prepare us. You should come out if only to support her, and us girls, too, of course.”

James’s mind was reeling. Faith taught the classics? He’d known, of course, that Faith’s father was a university don, but he hadn’t known that she’d had any interest in his work. He remembered his own university days, when Greek and Latin had bored him to tears. That’s what he’d always told himself. The truth was, he was too lazy to apply himself.

He looked down at Miss Winslet. “How many girls are in Miss McBride’s class?”

“There are only six of us senior girls left, though we started with twice that number. Some people have no stamina.”

“I’m surprised that there are still six of you left.”

She gurgled with laughter. “You wouldn’t say that if I were a boy. We can’t help being horribly clever. That’s why we’re encouraged to take Latin and Greek. Besides, we’ll need them when we go on to university.”

“University? You mean Oxford and Cambridge?”

“Yes. To the women’s colleges. Not that—”

Her words were drowned out by thunderous applause. The speeches were over. “Do say you’ll visit our class,” she begged. “It’s very informal, and it will give you a chance to renew your acquaintance with Miss McBride.”

Not only was the chit horribly clever, she was also horribly tenacious. Nothing seemed to depress her. He did the only thing that was left to him. He gave her a tight smile and conceded the point. “I’ll be there. You may depend on it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Burnett.”

He heaved a sigh when she moved away. In point of fact, he’d had every intention of visiting Faith’s class before Miss Winslet had cornered him. He wasn’t going to stay more than a few minutes, only long enough to make sure that Faith was out of the way when he broke into her room to look for the replies she’d had to her advertisement. It was possible that she had destroyed them, but it was worth a try. He had to know what kind of trouble she was in.

Now that the speeches were over, people were milling about in the hall, conversing in small groups and, of course, waiting their turn to speak to his aunt. Maids with laden trays were hurrying into the hall and setting things out on long tables to tempt the appetites of honored guests.

He was swallowing his third bite-sized cucumber sandwich when there was a sudden hush, and the headmistress announced that the rector would say grace before luncheon was served. He looked over at Faith and caught her staring right at him. Her brows were down. Feeling like a thief who had been caught red-handed, he put his fourth sandwich back on the plate and bowed his head. When the rector had given the blessing, James straightened. As he anticipated, Faith was one of the first to break from the herd and come straight for him. He looked over her head to see where Danvers was and noted that the abominable Miss Winslet was carrying on a one-sided conversation with the gentleman and thus preventing him from following Faith. Danvers looked impatient, but that did not stop Miss Winslet.

What was the chit up to?

Faith’s voice was clipped and intense. “I should like a word with you in private, Mr. Burnett.”

“I thought you might.” The sizzle in her eyes pleased him enormously, but he was careful not to show it. “Shall we take a turn around the hall?”

“No. I said ‘in private.’ There are too many people here. Let’s take a stroll in the grounds.”

He looked over at his aunt. She was surrounded by a press of people and seemed to be having the time of her life.

“Lead the way, Miss McBride,” he said.

 

 

He didn’t know which pleased him more, the view of the park
with its stately oaks and stands of beeches and cedars that seemed to stretch toward the distant houses, or the view of the young woman who strode ahead of him, her trim figure clothed in a gown of some indeterminate color that brought out the copper glints in her hair.

And the fiery glint in her eyes, he inwardly amended when she stopped suddenly and turned to face him.

He was fascinated by the way her breasts rose as she inhaled a long breath. “I do not appreciate your hounding me like this! First at Mr. Pritchard’s and now at the school. Say what you have to say, and be done with it.”

And he was irritated at the way she snapped at him. He wasn’t here by choice, but, of course, she could not know that. As pleasantly as he could manage, he said, “Hounding is too strong a word. Say, rather, that I’ve followed the trail you left. Shall we walk as we speak?”

She ignored the arm he offered, but she fell into step beside him. “So you weren’t in Mr. Pritchard’s shop by chance?”

“Ah, no, I saw your advertisement and decided to follow up on it. Old Pritchard told me that you usually collected your letters over the noon hour, and the rest you can guess.”

“I think there is more to it than that. You’re been having me followed. Don’t think I’m not aware of it. What I can’t understand is what you hope to gain.”

He had stopped in his tracks, his jaw slack. “Someone is following you?”

She retraced the few steps that brought them face-to-face. “You mean it wasn’t you in the grounds the other night, stalking me when I came out for a breath of fresh air? And you didn’t go to my room and go through my correspondence?”

“No,” he said violently. “I did neither of those things.” Not yet, he hadn’t.

He’d trusted his psychic powers to forewarn him of any threat to Faith. The trouble was, he was a novice. He wasn’t easy with the gift Granny McEcheran had passed on and, as far as possible, he tried to ignore it. What a complacent fool he had been.

His eyes searched hers. “Did he threaten you? Would you recognize him again?”

Her gaze was level, measuring him. Finally, she gave a shaky laugh. “No. In fact, I’m not sure of anything. Perhaps my imagination was playing tricks on me, or perhaps one of the girls came out for a breath of fresh air, too. She’d be breaking the rules and wouldn’t want to be caught.”

“Any other episodes?”

She made a face. “I get the odd feeling occasionally that someone is watching me, and the fine hairs on my neck begin to rise.”

James nodded. “I know the feeling. You should trust it.”

“But when I turn around, either no one is there or no one is looking at me. I’ve become nervous, I suppose, since I put that advertisement in the London papers.”

Her voice suddenly died, and she frowned as though she were annoyed with herself for telling him so much.

They walked on in silence.

“Maybe,” James finally said, “someone
is
following you. Maybe it
is
related to the advertisement you put in the papers. Who is Madeline Maynard, and why are you trying to find her?”

He’d hoped that Alex could help him discover the woman’s identity, but Alex had left for destinations unknown, and James hardly knew where to begin to look. Apart from that, he wanted to be discreet. He didn’t want anyone to know what Faith was up to in case he stirred up a hornet’s nest. On the other hand, she’d said that someone was stalking her. Maybe the time for discretion was past.

Her lips tightened. “That’s personal business and can be of no interest to you. So, what brings you here? What is it you want to say to me?”

A quick look at her profile convinced him that he wasn’t going to get any answers out of her, at least for the moment. He suppressed his impatience and took a moment to frame his thoughts. “I thought... that is . . . I hoped . . .”

When he faltered, she looked at him curiously. He couldn’t tell her the truth, but the explanation he’d hit upon seemed feeble now that he had to say the words aloud.

“I hoped,” he said, “that we could lay the past to rest. Life is too short to carry grudges, and we were very young”—he smiled a little—“and hot and impetuous. I always wondered what had happened to you. You did not leave a forwarding address.” The old feelings of betrayal were beginning to stir, and he finished hurriedly, “When I saw your advertisement, I knew I had to trace you if only to assure myself that things were going well with you.”

She said incredulously, “You went to all this trouble just to tell me that? I buried the past a long time ago. Believe me, I’m not carrying a grudge. Anyway, you could have written to me care of Mr. Pritchard, couldn’t you?” She gave a choked laugh. “I forgot. Writing isn’t your forte, is it? I think I can count on one hand the number of notes you wrote to me from Scotland.” She shook her head. “Let’s not go down that road, or we’ll be here till doomsday, and I haven’t got the time. I have to look over my notes for the lesson I’m giving, and, oh, mix with parents of my students. If it’s forgiveness you’re looking for, you have it.”

“I am not looking for forgiveness!”

“In fact, I can say now that your engagement to another woman was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realize that I was stronger than I knew.”

He took exception to her easy dismissal of something that had devastated him, but tried not to show it. He didn’t want to quarrel with her. He wanted to protect her, only this hard-eyed reincarnation of the girl he’d once loved was beginning to annoy him.

Suddenly, her expression changed, and she said softly, “I’m sorry I spoke so harshly. I read somewhere that you were widowed not long after you were married. What happened between us must pale to a triviality compared to that. I’m truly sorry.”

This was the Faith he remembered: soft, giving, misty-eyed and... and, he must never forget, treacherous. The old magnetism was still there, but he was older and wiser now. He wasn’t going to give in to it.

In the same soft inflection, she went on, “You went to South America, didn’t you, after your wife died? And built railways there? I heard you did very well for yourself.”

He’d gone to where he could make the most money to pay off his creditors, and that was before Fiona died. He’d been glad to get away from his wife, but he owed Faith no explanation, so he did not bother to correct her.

His voice was clipped. “You seem to be well-informed about me. I, on the other hand, know very little about you, except that you hared off with that Donkey fellow without giving me a chance to explain.”

Her voice was as icy as her eyes. “His name was Dobbin, not Donkey. As for how I come to know so much about you, I read the papers. You’re a celebrity, James, you know, the railway magnate who made his fortune building railways in South America.”

She made it sound as though he’d robbed widows and orphans. A look of hauteur settled on his face. “Dobbin? I was sure he was one of the Donkeys of Derby, but I’m not very good with names.”

“No, and you’re not very good at laying the past to rest, either. That’s what you said you wanted, isn’t it, to lay the past to rest? Well, consider it done.”

With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk back to the house.

He tried to be angry. He thought that he
should
be angry, that he had a
right
to be angry, but all he could feel was a strange sense of exhilaration. The carnal delights of the Golden Fleece could not compare to the slings and arrows of one disastrously righteous woman.