Page 32 of Who’s That Earl

Absently, Thomas smoothed a wrinkle from the tarp, tracing the sharp cutaway of the curricle’s side. No one at Dunnock Castle or in the village of Balisaig had ever seen Robin Ratliff, either. Everything about the man was as shrouded in mystery as this carriage.

Was it...was it possible she’d also invented—?

He clipped the thought short, before it could fully form.

It had always been in his nature to act first and think later. General Scott had done his best to train away those impulses. An intelligence officer gathered and weighed evidence. He did not leap to conclusions. No matter how tempting.

With a nod to Dougan, Thomas turned and left the stable.

Chapter 12

The convent walls had been built to safeguard its occupants from intruders. Getting out was easier. Allora managed the task with nothing worse than scraped knuckles and a perfectly mendable rent in her second-best muslin. Once over the wrought-iron gate, she directed her footsteps toward the forest. Fog lay like a damp, ghostly blanket over the valley. Though it had doubtless aided her escape, it also hid the mysterious glowing light from her view. Determined to discover its source, however, she forged ahead, her heart stuttering at every rustle of leaves and crackle in the undergrowth.

In ten years, she had never been allowed to venture beyond the convent’s walls. Her knowledge of the surrounding landscape consisted of the views she had taken from various vantage points, when she was supposed to be improving her sketching. Now, on the ground, everything looked different. Was she even headed in the right direction?

Just when despair had almost driven her to turn back, her shoulder struck something and forced a muffled gasp of pain from her lungs. Her sight rendered almost useless by the dark and the fog, she groped with numb fingers to identify what she’d stumbled against. The wall stretched as far and as high as she could reach without taking another step. Not a fence, then, but some sort of structure. A farmer’s cottage? A hermit’s hut?

Cautiously, she crept along the wall until she reached its end. Voices rose to her ear. Men’s voices, two or three, at least. They spoke to one another in a language she did not understand, their voices as rough-hewn as the boards from which the cabin had been built. Had she stumbled on a den of the brigands with which the forest was rumored to be rife? A strange thrill went through her. She had so little experience with the ways of men.

Hardly daring to breathe, she peered around the corner. Light spilled from a partially opened door to fall at her feet. Perhaps the men inside had seen the strange light. Perhaps one of them could be persuaded to guide her to it. At least, she—

“Well, well.” The voice spoke low in her ear, so close she could feel the man’s hot breath strike her cheek. Like the crack of a whip, his hand clapped over her mouth, pinning her against his hard body. “What’s a lovely lass like you doing out on a night like this?”

“Mrs. Higginbotham?”

Her heart beating almost as fast as her heroine’s, Jane jumped and gripped her pen tighter, narrowly managing to keep from throwing it across the desk and ruining an evening’s work with spattered ink. When she had drawn and released two calming breaths, she looked toward the doorway, where Elspeth Shaw, barmaid at the Thistle and Crown, stood, still wearing her apron over a woolen work dress, her cheeks ruddy with cold, and her reddish-blond hair in a flyaway braid.

“Och, now. Did I give ye a fright?” The amused twist to the young woman’s lips undercut the apology in her voice. “Mrs. Murdoch told me tae come up.”

After another deep breath for good measure, Jane glanced toward the window, where nightfall stained the sky. Were late-hour visitors to become a regular occurrence? “What brings you here on a night like this, Elspeth?” Jane asked, and nearly rolled her eyes at her unintentional echo of the brigand’s question. She’d been thinking only of the weather on the pages of her book. But it must be clear tonight in Balisaig. Elspeth wouldn’t have made the climb to Dunnock after dark if a fresh blanket of snow had fallen.

Jane had had most of a lifetime to make her peace with interruptions. Freedom from distraction, as Thomas had so succinctly put it, was a luxury most would never know. Prior to coming to Dunnock, she’d certainly never had a separate room in which to write.

Still, tonight’s interruption struck her as particularly ill-timed. She’d struggled half the afternoon to settle to her work, while her mind had insisted on reliving her foolish admission, reflecting on her suspicions about Thomas, and regretting yet another lost opportunity for a kiss. By dusk, her frustrations had been ratcheted up to a fever pitch.

She always strove for artistic detachment, but tonight, her heroine’s besetting sin—curiosity—combined with her ill-advised attraction to a most unsuitable, even dangerous, man felt a little too familiar. Perhaps the anonymous letter writer was right, albeit inadvertently. Perhaps her books were a dangerous influence on the hearts and minds of susceptible young women.

Swallowing her annoyance—with herself as much as the interruption, Jane laid aside her pen. Elspeth Shaw was something of a friend, and certainly a devotee. She had done nothing to deserve this rudeness.

As she rose from her desk, Jane spied a small book tucked in the young woman’s hand and recalled her promise to provide the next volume of The Necromancer’s Bride whenever Elspeth was ready to read it. Though she had a great deal of evidence that her stories were popular with readers, she would always thrill to the idea of someone being willing to trudge up the side of a mountain on a winter’s night just to find out what happened next.

Before she could say anything, though, Elspeth’s eyes widened. “What’s that you’re wearing, Mrs. Higginbotham?” she asked around a choked laugh.

Jane glanced down at the loose-fitting gown of brocaded silk. “A banyan,” she answered curtly. It had always struck her as unfair that a gentleman might wear something so relaxed and comfortable about the house and still be thought of as respectably dressed, while a lady serving tea in a dressing gown would start a scandal. So before she’d left London, she’d had a banyan made to Robin Ratliff’s measurements. It was her favorite costume for writing.

“I suppose you’ve finished the second volume of The Necromancer’s Bride,” Jane continued, gliding toward the bookshelf and ignoring Elspeth’s snickering.

“I finished it two days ago,” the young woman insisted, thrusting out her chin. “But Ross wouldn’t let me return it to you. He’s a slow reader, he is,” she added, and winked.

In spite of herself, the twitch of a smile rose to Jane’s lips. “Is he?” Was this the reason for Elspeth’s oddly timed visit? Had Mr. Ross been reading the book surreptitiously and sent the barmaid after the next installment the moment he’d finished the last? Then again, the ending of the second volume of that particular story had been timed to leave the reader wanting more...

Another little bolt of pride shot through her and turned the curve at the corners of her mouth even higher. What would any of them say if they ever discovered she was the one responsible for piquing their curiosity so wickedly well?

Experience had given her one answer to that question. Would she ever dare to trust anyone—trust Thomas—enough to find out if there were other answers? She’d already told him more than she’d intended to. Was she brave enough to spill the most important secret she kept? This time, would he follow with secrets of his own?

“’Course,” Elspeth continued, breaking into her thoughts, “he’d have me tell you I’m here on account of the letter.”

“Letter?” Something new and decidedly colder slithered along Jane’s spine. She held out another neatly bound duodecimo volume, and the young woman exchanged it for the one she cradled in the crook of her arm.