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Chapter 1
In spite of the eerie, not-quite quiet that settled over the island in the hours between dusk and dawn, Lieutenant Thomas Sutherland nearly missed the telltale rhythm of oars slicing through water.
Damn and blast. If he weren’t careful, he’d find himself in enemy hands after all this time. Or at the mercy of his general, once he’d explained how he’d been distracted from his duties by the scent of flowers.
Seven years stationed in Dominica, eyes and ears trained on the most likely landing spot for the French fleet, had honed his focus. He’d even learned to ignore the whine and sting of the damned mosquitoes, though they seemed to have a particular affinity for his blood—or perhaps for the whisky that ran in equal measure through his veins.
But in all that time, he’d never figured out how to ignore the sweetly sensual aroma that hung heavy on the still, dark air. Night-blooming jasmine, whose perfume should conjure no memories for him. Particularly not memories of an English lass from Sussex.
With a scowl—three parts for Napoleon and one part for himself—he dragged his attention to the business at hand and scanned the sheltered cove for the source of the sound. Though the waning moon was no more substantial than the paring of a fingernail, it was enough to silver the thin, rippling line of water at the shore’s edge. A thicker stripe of light ruffled and foamed where the surf broke farther out.
At last, his eyes caught the movement they sought. A skiff moved jerkily against the tide, riding low in the water beneath the weight of a passenger and an oarsman. Tracking their point of arrival, Thomas moved swiftly and noiselessly along the beach, clinging to the protection of the dense foliage as long as he could, pausing every now and then to scan the blackness behind the little boat. Somewhere out there lurked the ship from which the two men had been sent, their mission yet to be determined.
When nothing stood between him and the water but a stretch of gleaming white sand, he sank to his haunches behind an outcropping of rock and waited. The oarsman paused too, letting the incoming tide do a share of his work. Even at this distance, he looked too young for his task. The small craft scudded sideways through the shallows before the lad hopped out with a splash and dragged it onto the beach.
All this time, the passenger had sat without moving, without even turning his head to left or right. But the moment the skiff was securely lodged in the sand, he vaulted from it and stood, scanning first the beach, then the scrub, and finally the more distant trees. He made no effort to hide either himself or his actions, as if the risks of being seen were worth the reward of catching sight of whatever he’d come to find. He too was young, though older by far than the seaman who’d rowed him here. Perhaps twenty or twenty-two. And wearing a pristine British naval officer’s uniform, which made Thomas not one whit less wary of the man or his intentions.
The arrivals spoke to one another, too low for him to make out their words. English? Or French? The distant rumble of the tide disguised the cadence of their speech. After a brief exchange, the seaman clambered back into the skiff. When he was hunkered low in the bow, invisible to all but the best-trained eye, the supposed officer turned and began to make his way up the beach toward the woods, a trajectory that took him no more than five yards from the place where Thomas crouched.
Without taking his eyes from the man, Thomas slipped his knife from the sheath inside the shaft of his boot and followed. They moved as one, any noise Thomas made masked by the other’s fumbling progress through unfamiliar territory, the scuffle of steps slipping on loose sand, the careless crunch of seashells beneath his feet, the rustle of dried grasses against his legs. Bit by bit, Thomas closed the distance between them. Eventually, they reached a clearing where a small cabin stood, elevated on stilts to withstand the strong tropical storms. It formed the base for Thomas’s lookout operations, though he also kept rooms in Roseau, where he went whenever it became necessary to gather other sorts of information or sometimes to send communiqués.
The stranger nosed about, first examining the structure, then peering into the dark woods that surrounded it. When he set one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder that led to the door, preparing to ascend, Thomas spoke.
“Where I come from, it’s customary to wait for an invitation.”
The unexpected sound of a human voice produced exactly the response he expected. The man turned suddenly, lost his footing, and tumbled to the ground before locating Thomas as he emerged from the shadows just a few feet away.
“Bloody hell,” the man rasped, the air having been driven from his lungs by a combination of shock and the fall. “What are you doing?” His uncertain gaze shifted from Thomas’s simple linen clothes to his primitive little cottage to the curved blade of his knife. “When they said you’d been here too long, Sutherland, they weren’t wrong.” He had the voice of a public-school prefect, almost too flawless an English accent to be believed.
Thomas took another step forward. “Aye? And what else did they tell you? The password, you’d best hope.”
“P-password? I’m Captain Bancroft of the Colchester.” Desperation now sharpened his drawling speech, and he scrambled backward as he spoke, scooting across the dirt like a frightened crab. “I come bearing a dispatch from General Zebadiah Scott.”
A string of specifics primed to win a man’s confidence. Thomas, however, held his in reserve. Had it always been in his nature to expect a lie, to suspect a trap? Perhaps he had been here too long.
After a brief pause, the other man spoke again. “General Scott says, ‘Homeward, Magnus.’” Despite his vulnerable position, Bancroft—if that was indeed his name—enunciated the message like a man with no intention of repeating himself. Not even at knifepoint.
But repetition would serve little purpose. Thomas had heard him perfectly. He held himself rigid, determined not to betray the internal disturbance caused by two simple words. With them, any doubt about the genuineness of either Bancroft’s identity or his mission had evaporated.
Apparently interpreting Thomas’s stillness as confusion, Bancroft dared a slight clearing of his throat. “You have the necessary cipher, I assume.”
A long, deliberate pause. “Nay.”
Because for once, there was no code to be broken. Magnus was too obscure, and too personal, to require encryption. Though Thomas had not heard it for many years, the name was perfectly familiar.
How it should come to be addressed to him, here, was the real enigma.
But no mere cipher could provide the necessary clarification. Only General Scott could do that, and he evidently preferred to explain in person rather than relay the whys and wherefores through an intermediary.
Out of habit, Thomas cocked his head in a listening posture, though his thoughts were too jumbled for him to hear anything beyond the roar of his blood in his ears.
Fortunately, all of his senses had not deserted him. A sudden gust of perfume filled his nostrils. Night-blooming jasmine, again. And with it came the familiar memory. A woman’s upturned face. Nut-brown hair, plump cheeks, blue eyes. He tried to shake her picture from his mind. Good God, what had—?
What had stirred the branches of that infernal shrub? There was no wind to speak of, and they’d come too far from the beach to blame the ocean breeze for driving the scent. Something, or someone, was on the move nearby.
With a swift, silent lunge, he closed the distance between him and Bancroft. Before the captain could react, Thomas had dragged him half upright and pinned him to one of the stilts that supported the cabin, using both the man’s body and the stout wooden post as a shield against the intruder. With one hand, he twisted Bancroft’s arms behind his back, while with the other he held the knife to the man’s neck.
“Christ,” Bancroft whimpered, almost a prayer. The movement of the man’s throat made the blade twitch. Reluctantly, Thomas shifted the position of his hand. He had no desire to spill blood—yet.
In another moment, the almost-forgotten seaman crashed into the little clearing. His eyes darted nervously from one pool of shadow to another. Though the boy could not have been more than twelve, he could not be safely ignored, for in one sinewy arm, he held an oar over his head.
Thomas spoke low, before he could be picked out from the darkness. “Drop it, lad.”
His voice drew the boy’s eye to the perilous situation of his commanding officer. The same faint streak of moonlight that had silvered the waves now gleamed along the blade of Thomas’s knife. The boy froze with the oar still upraised, swaying slightly beneath its weight and momentum.
With a flick of his wrist, Thomas motioned for him to lay it on the ground.
“Do it, Perkins” Bancroft rasped. “I don’t fancy having a mad Scotsman fillet me with a rusty cane knife.”
Bewildered, the lad looked first to one and then the other before shaking his head and letting the oar drop. It landed with a dull thud, bounced off the hard ground, and struck Bancroft’s shin.
The string of profanity that flew from Bancroft’s lips marked him clearly as an Englishman—men almost always resorted to their native tongue when sick or in pain. Thomas was similarly convinced that no bones had been broken, else the man would have been neither so creative nor so coherent. “Cheer up, Captain.” He thrust the knife once more into its sheath, then favored the man with a lazy smile. “The lad might’ve been carrying a pistol.”
“I had hopes that the oar would be persuasion enough,” Bancroft ground from between clenched teeth, still clutching at his injury.
Despite the warm, humid air, a chill settled over Thomas. The captain had ordered the seaman to follow him—and to come armed. As if they’d expected trouble. Or resistance.
“Persuasion?”
Bancroft winced as he struggled to keep his feet, leaning heavily on Perkins and gesturing for the oar, which he pressed into service as a makeshift crutch. Dust streaked his once-spotless uniform, one sleeve was torn, and sweat slid down his face in rivulets, making tracks in the smear of dirt across one cheek. Still, he had not lost his haughty demeanor. “General Scott made it clear that you have never shown any particular fondness for following orders.”
Thomas shrugged gamely. Why else would he have been sent to this godforsaken spot to begin with?
“He asked me to make sure you understood that it’s imperative you follow this one.”
With the oar, Bancroft gestured toward the rough path their feet had carved between the spot where they stood and the beach, indicating that Thomas was to lead the way back to the boat.
Such a simple directive: Homeward.
But where, after all this time, was home?
* * * *
Chapter 2
Absently, Jane fingered the pearl handle of her penknife. Then, with one firm, deliberate movement, she drove its sharp tip through the papers and into the scarred oak desktop. Ordinarily, she wasn’t the sort to be bothered by one troubling letter.
Today, however, the post had brought two.
They’d had the nerve to arrive together, in one packet, accompanied by a newsy note from Mr. Canfield, her London publisher, apologizing for the delay in sending them. He had been attending his elderly father in Bath, he’d explained, where that gentleman had been sent in hopes of improving his rheumatism.
With little in the way of expectation, she’d opened the first, a lengthy missive from a solicitor, announcing the demise of the Earl of Magnus, laird of Dunnock Castle. The heir had, at last, been located in some farflung spot, remote enough that his immediate interference with matters at home was unlikely.
However, as Mr. Ratliff’s legal counsel, he’d concluded, I feel myself obliged to inform him that the renewal of the lease on Dunnock Castle cannot be unequivocally guaranteed.
For more than five years, Dunnock Castle had been her home. She’d almost begun to think of it as hers—certainly the late earl had shown no signs of possessiveness where the ancient castle, and its lands and people, were concerned. But the new earl, no matter how far removed, might see things differently. She might, once again, find herself homeless.
With a heavy sigh, she’d tossed that letter onto the desktop and turned to the second, hoping for better news, only to be confronted by a detailed reckoning of the particular circle of hell to which authors of books like The Necromancer’s Bride ought to be consigned.
She knew—had always known—that some people did not approve of novels. Particularly not the sort of lurid, gothic tales she penned under the name Robin Ratliff. She was no stranger to criticism.
But this was different. Not just a critique. A threat. Oh, a rather melodramatic one, to be sure—unless the writer’s skills at dark magic actually rivaled her fictional creation’s. Nevertheless, the words had sent an unwelcome sensation of alarm slithering down her spine.
Just for good measure, she tugged the knife free and stabbed the offending papers again.
From the puddle of canine devotion near the hearth came a weary groan. “I know, I know,” she murmured consolingly. She did not intend to let idle threats and pointless worries keep her from her work.
Neither did she remove the blade from the wood.
Instead, she drew a half-filled page toward her, while reaching for a pen with the other hand. Leaning back into the chair, she brushed the feather across her lips as she scanned the words she’d written earlier:
Fog rippled through the undergrowth...Was that a spectral glow emanating from one of the vaults in the churchyard? No, the light came from farther off, somewhere in the woods...Allora’s pale hand trembled as she laid it against the stone window ledge...
Jane’s gaze drifted from the paper in her hand to the crackling fire. One of the dogs had begun to snore. This would never do. Tossing the pen aside, she pushed herself away from the desk and walked to the window to open it. The room was too warm, that was all.
She’d come all the way to Scotland for crumbling stone walls and wild landscapes. For whatever local legends she could unearth: will o’ the wisps and witches, demon bear-ghosts and time-traveling stone circles.
For inspiration.
Most of all, in Scotland she was free. And she was not going to let a pair of letters take her freedom from her.
Thrusting open the glass—which was as narrow and crisscrossed with lead as anyone of a romantic disposition could wish—she drew in a deep gulp of damp, wintry air. The gloom of twilight had newly settled in the vales and crags, and far below, parts of Dunnock Castle had already disappeared into darkness. In the distance, the loch was as black as a pool of spilled ink.
Her eyes traveled eagerly from one shadowy place to the next. Though the misty rain threatened to turn to sleet at any moment, her heroine, Allora, would not stay cozy and secure inside on a night like this. She would pick her way among the rugged rocks, though her slippers offered no protection from their mercilessly sharp edges. She would press on across the frost-bitten heath, despite being clad in nothing but her nightdress. She would make her way past the ancient kirk, slipping between the mossy gravestones, although she knew too well the rumors that--
“Gracious, ma’am! You’ll catch your death.”
Agnes Murdoch, the elderly housekeeper, stood just inside the threshold, drawn up to her full height of four feet, eleven inches.
Jane had had no notice of the woman’s arrival, too lost in her own thoughts to have heard footsteps on the winding staircase of the south tower or even a tap on the door. The dogs’ silence had long since been bought by Mrs. Murdoch’s bits of cheese. One glance at the plush cushions by the fire confirmed that they had not stirred themselves to give warning, though one watchful eye gleamed from a mound of brown and white fur. Agnes might have something of interest in her pocket, after all.
Mrs. Murdoch looked from Jane to the desk and back again, evidently torn between her desire to snatch the window frame from her mistress’s hand and slam it shut, and the more suitably servant-like behavior of snatching up the papers that had been scattered by the gust of wind.
Jane took pity on her and closed the window. The papers ceased their skittish dance across the polished desktop and onto the floor. She could only hope all the magic had not gone out of them.
“There’s a gentleman below, asking for you, ma’am.” Agnes announced at last.
“Who could be calling at this hour?”
One of Agnes’s shoulders lifted. Abashed, she shook her head. “Dougan didna think t’ ask his name.”
Jane nodded her understanding. Dougan had the heart and mind of a child in a man’s body. Folks would consider it a great kindness if ye could see your way to keepin’ him on, Agnes had told her when she’d first arrived at Dunnock. He likes to feel useful about the place.
As it had turned out, feeling useful primarily involved Dougan marching back and forth across the parapet in his kilt, occasionally while playing the bagpipes, but Jane had readily agreed to retain him as gatekeeper. At the time, she’d expected no visitors.
Now, however... She glanced toward her desk and the letters. A shiver passed through her, and she stepped away from the window, though the glass was tightly closed.
Could the arrival be the new earl?
“Dougan didn’t mention the man arriving in a crested coach drawn by six black horses, with outriders to match, did he?” The noblemen in her stories, nefarious rogues every one of them, always traveled in such a fashion.
“No, indeed.” The prospect of entertaining such a grand personage visibly alarmed the elderly housekeeper. “Verra handsome he is, though.”
In most respects, the housekeeper was as stern and proper as could be desired. Persuaded that Mrs. Higginbotham must be lonely in her isolation, however, she was also prone to take every opportunity to point out eligible men. Past efforts had ranged from the scrawny, red-faced cotter’s son who had brought them fresh vegetables in the summer to the silver-haired sexton, who always had dirt beneath his nails. To Jane’s relief—and Agnes’s chagrin—the environs of Dunnock Castle included very few “braw lads.”
Not that Jane was indifferent to the attractions of a fine masculine form. She was, after all, just four and twenty and blessed with excellent eyesight. But being appreciative of a man’s looks did not mean being susceptible to his charms. She had taken pains to make herself perfectly independent, and she was more than content to leave such foolishness to elderly servants and the misguided heroines of fiction.
“That’s as may be, I suppose,” Jane retorted primly, grimly.
Agnes set her face in an expression to match Jane’s. “Then you’ll come down, ma’am.”
It wasn’t a question. Briefly, Jane considered ordering Agnes to send the man away instead. To tell him to call again in the morning. Or never.
But curiosity burrowed beneath her skin, like one of the dogs nuzzling insistently under her hand to be petted. “If I must.”
Unwilling to appear disheveled before a stranger—before anyone, really—Jane paused to raise a hand to smooth her hair and then to shake the wrinkles from her skirt. Her efforts earned a sly glance from Agnes, who doubtless saw it as primping before meeting a handsome man. Finally, Jane gathered the wayward papers, depositing them in a neat stack beside the ones pinned to the desktop by her penknife.
With a nod to the housekeeper to precede her, she strode toward the door. Both dogs lifted their heads to watch her go, but neither showed any inclination to follow. No one would ever mistake them for watchdogs.
When she entered the room where the stranger had been left to wait, her first thought was that Agnes might also have mentioned he was tall. Six feet, at least, by Jane’s estimate, and the cavernous Great Hall of Dunnock Castle had a way of making things look smaller than they really were.
Tall and broad. His arms were crossed in front of him, pulling his greatcoat taut across his shoulders as he studied a timeworn tapestry hanging above the hearth—the empty hearth. She did not make a habit of keeping fires burning to welcome guests. Despite the chilly reception, there was something easy, familiar, about his posture. She recognized his type. The sort of man who would sprawl if one offered him a chair. Which she had no intention of doing.
His back was turned to her, so she could assess little more than the cut of his coat—neither new nor fashionable—and its dampness. No coach and six for this gentleman, unless he’d left them in the village and walked.
As she approached, the scuff of her soft-soled shoes across the flagstone seemed not to alert him to her presence. Deep in thought, apparently. Or hard of hearing, like the sexton.
A half-dozen feet away, she stopped and spoke in a ringing voice. “You wished to see me, sir?”
His reaction—the slight lift of his shoulders, the slow turn of his head—hinted more at annoyance than surprise. “There must have been some misunderstanding.” A Scotsman, by his accent, though his brogue was considerably softer than the ones she heard about Dunnock. “I asked to speak with Robin Ratliff’s secretary.”
“And so you are.”
All of Dunnock Castle, the village of Balisaig, even Mr. Canfield, believed Jane to be the famous author’s secretary—though personally she preferred the title of amanuensis.
Ratliff’s genius, as she’d told the skeleton staff of Dunnock, demanded his total seclusion from the world. She managed to avoid questions largely by claiming he was traveling for research, or for pleasure, for months at a time. If anyone interrupted her while she was writing, Jane claimed to be merely copying out the author’s notes.
She’d constructed an elaborate fiction, far more elaborate than the ones printed in cheap duodecimo volumes with Gothic typeface on the title page, the ones that found their way into housemaids’ garrets and respectable drawing rooms alike. Ratliff’s books had made her rich, but posing asRatliff’s assistant had given her something money and celebrity could not, something more valuable still. Believing her to be little more than a servant, people largely left her in peace.
Well, most people. Beneath her skirts, her toe began to tap as she glared at the stranger’s back. She could see nothing more of his face than the firm edge of a jaw that hadn’t been shaved that morning. His attention was still half-caught by the tapestry, which depicted some long-ago battle, the winning side led by the man who’d first been honored as the Earl of Magnus, so the story went.
“I was referring to Mr. Higginbotham,” he said. How could a man sound both lazy and impatient at once?
“There is no Mr. Higginbotham.” Out of habit, she dropped her gaze to the unrelieved black of her woolen dress and heaved a mournful sigh. “At least, not anymore.”
It was a show of sorrow she had made many times, and always to the purpose. After the initial murmuring of pity, people looked past a respectable widow in her weeds, even a young one. Which was exactly how Jane wanted it.
In truth, there had never been a Mr. Higginbotham. Jane had invented him too: the perfect man, as kind, as gentle, as unlike a Robin Ratliff character, either hero or villain, as she could make him. Most important, he’d been generous enough to leave her with a widow’s independence before she was even of age.
In addition to privacy, the assumed name of Mrs. Higginbotham also provided Jane with an extra measure of protection from anyone who wished her ill—or who would wish her ill, if they knew the truth. A society that frowned on female ambition. That threatening letter writer. Her family.
Not a soul from London to the Scottish Highlands recognized her as--
“Miss Quayle?”
At that, she jerked up her head. She had been so busy schooling her expression into something appropriately doleful, she had not realized the stranger had turned fully to face her. Now that he had doffed his hat, she could see his wavy dark brown hair and the thick brows that framed expressive hazel eyes.
A familiar face, and not only in the sense of easygoing. Known to her.
Or at least, known to the woman she had once been.
Bewilderment, surprise, disbelief skated across Lieutenant Thomas Sutherland’s sun-browned features as he took a tentative step toward her, one hand extended. She could almost fancy he had found something for which he’d long been searching and was afraid one false move might drive it away again.
Further evidence that her mind was prone to foolish fancies tonight.
* * * *
Want to read more? Pre-order here, and Who’s That Earl will appear on your e-reader August 18!
©Susanna Craig 2020
In spite of the eerie, not-quite quiet that settled over the island in the hours between dusk and dawn, Lieutenant Thomas Sutherland nearly missed the telltale rhythm of oars slicing through water.
Damn and blast. If he weren’t careful, he’d find himself in enemy hands after all this time. Or at the mercy of his general, once he’d explained how he’d been distracted from his duties by the scent of flowers.
Seven years stationed in Dominica, eyes and ears trained on the most likely landing spot for the French fleet, had honed his focus. He’d even learned to ignore the whine and sting of the damned mosquitoes, though they seemed to have a particular affinity for his blood—or perhaps for the whisky that ran in equal measure through his veins.
But in all that time, he’d never figured out how to ignore the sweetly sensual aroma that hung heavy on the still, dark air. Night-blooming jasmine, whose perfume should conjure no memories for him. Particularly not memories of an English lass from Sussex.
With a scowl—three parts for Napoleon and one part for himself—he dragged his attention to the business at hand and scanned the sheltered cove for the source of the sound. Though the waning moon was no more substantial than the paring of a fingernail, it was enough to silver the thin, rippling line of water at the shore’s edge. A thicker stripe of light ruffled and foamed where the surf broke farther out.
At last, his eyes caught the movement they sought. A skiff moved jerkily against the tide, riding low in the water beneath the weight of a passenger and an oarsman. Tracking their point of arrival, Thomas moved swiftly and noiselessly along the beach, clinging to the protection of the dense foliage as long as he could, pausing every now and then to scan the blackness behind the little boat. Somewhere out there lurked the ship from which the two men had been sent, their mission yet to be determined.
When nothing stood between him and the water but a stretch of gleaming white sand, he sank to his haunches behind an outcropping of rock and waited. The oarsman paused too, letting the incoming tide do a share of his work. Even at this distance, he looked too young for his task. The small craft scudded sideways through the shallows before the lad hopped out with a splash and dragged it onto the beach.
All this time, the passenger had sat without moving, without even turning his head to left or right. But the moment the skiff was securely lodged in the sand, he vaulted from it and stood, scanning first the beach, then the scrub, and finally the more distant trees. He made no effort to hide either himself or his actions, as if the risks of being seen were worth the reward of catching sight of whatever he’d come to find. He too was young, though older by far than the seaman who’d rowed him here. Perhaps twenty or twenty-two. And wearing a pristine British naval officer’s uniform, which made Thomas not one whit less wary of the man or his intentions.
The arrivals spoke to one another, too low for him to make out their words. English? Or French? The distant rumble of the tide disguised the cadence of their speech. After a brief exchange, the seaman clambered back into the skiff. When he was hunkered low in the bow, invisible to all but the best-trained eye, the supposed officer turned and began to make his way up the beach toward the woods, a trajectory that took him no more than five yards from the place where Thomas crouched.
Without taking his eyes from the man, Thomas slipped his knife from the sheath inside the shaft of his boot and followed. They moved as one, any noise Thomas made masked by the other’s fumbling progress through unfamiliar territory, the scuffle of steps slipping on loose sand, the careless crunch of seashells beneath his feet, the rustle of dried grasses against his legs. Bit by bit, Thomas closed the distance between them. Eventually, they reached a clearing where a small cabin stood, elevated on stilts to withstand the strong tropical storms. It formed the base for Thomas’s lookout operations, though he also kept rooms in Roseau, where he went whenever it became necessary to gather other sorts of information or sometimes to send communiqués.
The stranger nosed about, first examining the structure, then peering into the dark woods that surrounded it. When he set one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder that led to the door, preparing to ascend, Thomas spoke.
“Where I come from, it’s customary to wait for an invitation.”
The unexpected sound of a human voice produced exactly the response he expected. The man turned suddenly, lost his footing, and tumbled to the ground before locating Thomas as he emerged from the shadows just a few feet away.
“Bloody hell,” the man rasped, the air having been driven from his lungs by a combination of shock and the fall. “What are you doing?” His uncertain gaze shifted from Thomas’s simple linen clothes to his primitive little cottage to the curved blade of his knife. “When they said you’d been here too long, Sutherland, they weren’t wrong.” He had the voice of a public-school prefect, almost too flawless an English accent to be believed.
Thomas took another step forward. “Aye? And what else did they tell you? The password, you’d best hope.”
“P-password? I’m Captain Bancroft of the Colchester.” Desperation now sharpened his drawling speech, and he scrambled backward as he spoke, scooting across the dirt like a frightened crab. “I come bearing a dispatch from General Zebadiah Scott.”
A string of specifics primed to win a man’s confidence. Thomas, however, held his in reserve. Had it always been in his nature to expect a lie, to suspect a trap? Perhaps he had been here too long.
After a brief pause, the other man spoke again. “General Scott says, ‘Homeward, Magnus.’” Despite his vulnerable position, Bancroft—if that was indeed his name—enunciated the message like a man with no intention of repeating himself. Not even at knifepoint.
But repetition would serve little purpose. Thomas had heard him perfectly. He held himself rigid, determined not to betray the internal disturbance caused by two simple words. With them, any doubt about the genuineness of either Bancroft’s identity or his mission had evaporated.
Apparently interpreting Thomas’s stillness as confusion, Bancroft dared a slight clearing of his throat. “You have the necessary cipher, I assume.”
A long, deliberate pause. “Nay.”
Because for once, there was no code to be broken. Magnus was too obscure, and too personal, to require encryption. Though Thomas had not heard it for many years, the name was perfectly familiar.
How it should come to be addressed to him, here, was the real enigma.
But no mere cipher could provide the necessary clarification. Only General Scott could do that, and he evidently preferred to explain in person rather than relay the whys and wherefores through an intermediary.
Out of habit, Thomas cocked his head in a listening posture, though his thoughts were too jumbled for him to hear anything beyond the roar of his blood in his ears.
Fortunately, all of his senses had not deserted him. A sudden gust of perfume filled his nostrils. Night-blooming jasmine, again. And with it came the familiar memory. A woman’s upturned face. Nut-brown hair, plump cheeks, blue eyes. He tried to shake her picture from his mind. Good God, what had—?
What had stirred the branches of that infernal shrub? There was no wind to speak of, and they’d come too far from the beach to blame the ocean breeze for driving the scent. Something, or someone, was on the move nearby.
With a swift, silent lunge, he closed the distance between him and Bancroft. Before the captain could react, Thomas had dragged him half upright and pinned him to one of the stilts that supported the cabin, using both the man’s body and the stout wooden post as a shield against the intruder. With one hand, he twisted Bancroft’s arms behind his back, while with the other he held the knife to the man’s neck.
“Christ,” Bancroft whimpered, almost a prayer. The movement of the man’s throat made the blade twitch. Reluctantly, Thomas shifted the position of his hand. He had no desire to spill blood—yet.
In another moment, the almost-forgotten seaman crashed into the little clearing. His eyes darted nervously from one pool of shadow to another. Though the boy could not have been more than twelve, he could not be safely ignored, for in one sinewy arm, he held an oar over his head.
Thomas spoke low, before he could be picked out from the darkness. “Drop it, lad.”
His voice drew the boy’s eye to the perilous situation of his commanding officer. The same faint streak of moonlight that had silvered the waves now gleamed along the blade of Thomas’s knife. The boy froze with the oar still upraised, swaying slightly beneath its weight and momentum.
With a flick of his wrist, Thomas motioned for him to lay it on the ground.
“Do it, Perkins” Bancroft rasped. “I don’t fancy having a mad Scotsman fillet me with a rusty cane knife.”
Bewildered, the lad looked first to one and then the other before shaking his head and letting the oar drop. It landed with a dull thud, bounced off the hard ground, and struck Bancroft’s shin.
The string of profanity that flew from Bancroft’s lips marked him clearly as an Englishman—men almost always resorted to their native tongue when sick or in pain. Thomas was similarly convinced that no bones had been broken, else the man would have been neither so creative nor so coherent. “Cheer up, Captain.” He thrust the knife once more into its sheath, then favored the man with a lazy smile. “The lad might’ve been carrying a pistol.”
“I had hopes that the oar would be persuasion enough,” Bancroft ground from between clenched teeth, still clutching at his injury.
Despite the warm, humid air, a chill settled over Thomas. The captain had ordered the seaman to follow him—and to come armed. As if they’d expected trouble. Or resistance.
“Persuasion?”
Bancroft winced as he struggled to keep his feet, leaning heavily on Perkins and gesturing for the oar, which he pressed into service as a makeshift crutch. Dust streaked his once-spotless uniform, one sleeve was torn, and sweat slid down his face in rivulets, making tracks in the smear of dirt across one cheek. Still, he had not lost his haughty demeanor. “General Scott made it clear that you have never shown any particular fondness for following orders.”
Thomas shrugged gamely. Why else would he have been sent to this godforsaken spot to begin with?
“He asked me to make sure you understood that it’s imperative you follow this one.”
With the oar, Bancroft gestured toward the rough path their feet had carved between the spot where they stood and the beach, indicating that Thomas was to lead the way back to the boat.
Such a simple directive: Homeward.
But where, after all this time, was home?
* * * *
Chapter 2
Absently, Jane fingered the pearl handle of her penknife. Then, with one firm, deliberate movement, she drove its sharp tip through the papers and into the scarred oak desktop. Ordinarily, she wasn’t the sort to be bothered by one troubling letter.
Today, however, the post had brought two.
They’d had the nerve to arrive together, in one packet, accompanied by a newsy note from Mr. Canfield, her London publisher, apologizing for the delay in sending them. He had been attending his elderly father in Bath, he’d explained, where that gentleman had been sent in hopes of improving his rheumatism.
With little in the way of expectation, she’d opened the first, a lengthy missive from a solicitor, announcing the demise of the Earl of Magnus, laird of Dunnock Castle. The heir had, at last, been located in some farflung spot, remote enough that his immediate interference with matters at home was unlikely.
However, as Mr. Ratliff’s legal counsel, he’d concluded, I feel myself obliged to inform him that the renewal of the lease on Dunnock Castle cannot be unequivocally guaranteed.
For more than five years, Dunnock Castle had been her home. She’d almost begun to think of it as hers—certainly the late earl had shown no signs of possessiveness where the ancient castle, and its lands and people, were concerned. But the new earl, no matter how far removed, might see things differently. She might, once again, find herself homeless.
With a heavy sigh, she’d tossed that letter onto the desktop and turned to the second, hoping for better news, only to be confronted by a detailed reckoning of the particular circle of hell to which authors of books like The Necromancer’s Bride ought to be consigned.
She knew—had always known—that some people did not approve of novels. Particularly not the sort of lurid, gothic tales she penned under the name Robin Ratliff. She was no stranger to criticism.
But this was different. Not just a critique. A threat. Oh, a rather melodramatic one, to be sure—unless the writer’s skills at dark magic actually rivaled her fictional creation’s. Nevertheless, the words had sent an unwelcome sensation of alarm slithering down her spine.
Just for good measure, she tugged the knife free and stabbed the offending papers again.
From the puddle of canine devotion near the hearth came a weary groan. “I know, I know,” she murmured consolingly. She did not intend to let idle threats and pointless worries keep her from her work.
Neither did she remove the blade from the wood.
Instead, she drew a half-filled page toward her, while reaching for a pen with the other hand. Leaning back into the chair, she brushed the feather across her lips as she scanned the words she’d written earlier:
Fog rippled through the undergrowth...Was that a spectral glow emanating from one of the vaults in the churchyard? No, the light came from farther off, somewhere in the woods...Allora’s pale hand trembled as she laid it against the stone window ledge...
Jane’s gaze drifted from the paper in her hand to the crackling fire. One of the dogs had begun to snore. This would never do. Tossing the pen aside, she pushed herself away from the desk and walked to the window to open it. The room was too warm, that was all.
She’d come all the way to Scotland for crumbling stone walls and wild landscapes. For whatever local legends she could unearth: will o’ the wisps and witches, demon bear-ghosts and time-traveling stone circles.
For inspiration.
Most of all, in Scotland she was free. And she was not going to let a pair of letters take her freedom from her.
Thrusting open the glass—which was as narrow and crisscrossed with lead as anyone of a romantic disposition could wish—she drew in a deep gulp of damp, wintry air. The gloom of twilight had newly settled in the vales and crags, and far below, parts of Dunnock Castle had already disappeared into darkness. In the distance, the loch was as black as a pool of spilled ink.
Her eyes traveled eagerly from one shadowy place to the next. Though the misty rain threatened to turn to sleet at any moment, her heroine, Allora, would not stay cozy and secure inside on a night like this. She would pick her way among the rugged rocks, though her slippers offered no protection from their mercilessly sharp edges. She would press on across the frost-bitten heath, despite being clad in nothing but her nightdress. She would make her way past the ancient kirk, slipping between the mossy gravestones, although she knew too well the rumors that--
“Gracious, ma’am! You’ll catch your death.”
Agnes Murdoch, the elderly housekeeper, stood just inside the threshold, drawn up to her full height of four feet, eleven inches.
Jane had had no notice of the woman’s arrival, too lost in her own thoughts to have heard footsteps on the winding staircase of the south tower or even a tap on the door. The dogs’ silence had long since been bought by Mrs. Murdoch’s bits of cheese. One glance at the plush cushions by the fire confirmed that they had not stirred themselves to give warning, though one watchful eye gleamed from a mound of brown and white fur. Agnes might have something of interest in her pocket, after all.
Mrs. Murdoch looked from Jane to the desk and back again, evidently torn between her desire to snatch the window frame from her mistress’s hand and slam it shut, and the more suitably servant-like behavior of snatching up the papers that had been scattered by the gust of wind.
Jane took pity on her and closed the window. The papers ceased their skittish dance across the polished desktop and onto the floor. She could only hope all the magic had not gone out of them.
“There’s a gentleman below, asking for you, ma’am.” Agnes announced at last.
“Who could be calling at this hour?”
One of Agnes’s shoulders lifted. Abashed, she shook her head. “Dougan didna think t’ ask his name.”
Jane nodded her understanding. Dougan had the heart and mind of a child in a man’s body. Folks would consider it a great kindness if ye could see your way to keepin’ him on, Agnes had told her when she’d first arrived at Dunnock. He likes to feel useful about the place.
As it had turned out, feeling useful primarily involved Dougan marching back and forth across the parapet in his kilt, occasionally while playing the bagpipes, but Jane had readily agreed to retain him as gatekeeper. At the time, she’d expected no visitors.
Now, however... She glanced toward her desk and the letters. A shiver passed through her, and she stepped away from the window, though the glass was tightly closed.
Could the arrival be the new earl?
“Dougan didn’t mention the man arriving in a crested coach drawn by six black horses, with outriders to match, did he?” The noblemen in her stories, nefarious rogues every one of them, always traveled in such a fashion.
“No, indeed.” The prospect of entertaining such a grand personage visibly alarmed the elderly housekeeper. “Verra handsome he is, though.”
In most respects, the housekeeper was as stern and proper as could be desired. Persuaded that Mrs. Higginbotham must be lonely in her isolation, however, she was also prone to take every opportunity to point out eligible men. Past efforts had ranged from the scrawny, red-faced cotter’s son who had brought them fresh vegetables in the summer to the silver-haired sexton, who always had dirt beneath his nails. To Jane’s relief—and Agnes’s chagrin—the environs of Dunnock Castle included very few “braw lads.”
Not that Jane was indifferent to the attractions of a fine masculine form. She was, after all, just four and twenty and blessed with excellent eyesight. But being appreciative of a man’s looks did not mean being susceptible to his charms. She had taken pains to make herself perfectly independent, and she was more than content to leave such foolishness to elderly servants and the misguided heroines of fiction.
“That’s as may be, I suppose,” Jane retorted primly, grimly.
Agnes set her face in an expression to match Jane’s. “Then you’ll come down, ma’am.”
It wasn’t a question. Briefly, Jane considered ordering Agnes to send the man away instead. To tell him to call again in the morning. Or never.
But curiosity burrowed beneath her skin, like one of the dogs nuzzling insistently under her hand to be petted. “If I must.”
Unwilling to appear disheveled before a stranger—before anyone, really—Jane paused to raise a hand to smooth her hair and then to shake the wrinkles from her skirt. Her efforts earned a sly glance from Agnes, who doubtless saw it as primping before meeting a handsome man. Finally, Jane gathered the wayward papers, depositing them in a neat stack beside the ones pinned to the desktop by her penknife.
With a nod to the housekeeper to precede her, she strode toward the door. Both dogs lifted their heads to watch her go, but neither showed any inclination to follow. No one would ever mistake them for watchdogs.
When she entered the room where the stranger had been left to wait, her first thought was that Agnes might also have mentioned he was tall. Six feet, at least, by Jane’s estimate, and the cavernous Great Hall of Dunnock Castle had a way of making things look smaller than they really were.
Tall and broad. His arms were crossed in front of him, pulling his greatcoat taut across his shoulders as he studied a timeworn tapestry hanging above the hearth—the empty hearth. She did not make a habit of keeping fires burning to welcome guests. Despite the chilly reception, there was something easy, familiar, about his posture. She recognized his type. The sort of man who would sprawl if one offered him a chair. Which she had no intention of doing.
His back was turned to her, so she could assess little more than the cut of his coat—neither new nor fashionable—and its dampness. No coach and six for this gentleman, unless he’d left them in the village and walked.
As she approached, the scuff of her soft-soled shoes across the flagstone seemed not to alert him to her presence. Deep in thought, apparently. Or hard of hearing, like the sexton.
A half-dozen feet away, she stopped and spoke in a ringing voice. “You wished to see me, sir?”
His reaction—the slight lift of his shoulders, the slow turn of his head—hinted more at annoyance than surprise. “There must have been some misunderstanding.” A Scotsman, by his accent, though his brogue was considerably softer than the ones she heard about Dunnock. “I asked to speak with Robin Ratliff’s secretary.”
“And so you are.”
All of Dunnock Castle, the village of Balisaig, even Mr. Canfield, believed Jane to be the famous author’s secretary—though personally she preferred the title of amanuensis.
Ratliff’s genius, as she’d told the skeleton staff of Dunnock, demanded his total seclusion from the world. She managed to avoid questions largely by claiming he was traveling for research, or for pleasure, for months at a time. If anyone interrupted her while she was writing, Jane claimed to be merely copying out the author’s notes.
She’d constructed an elaborate fiction, far more elaborate than the ones printed in cheap duodecimo volumes with Gothic typeface on the title page, the ones that found their way into housemaids’ garrets and respectable drawing rooms alike. Ratliff’s books had made her rich, but posing asRatliff’s assistant had given her something money and celebrity could not, something more valuable still. Believing her to be little more than a servant, people largely left her in peace.
Well, most people. Beneath her skirts, her toe began to tap as she glared at the stranger’s back. She could see nothing more of his face than the firm edge of a jaw that hadn’t been shaved that morning. His attention was still half-caught by the tapestry, which depicted some long-ago battle, the winning side led by the man who’d first been honored as the Earl of Magnus, so the story went.
“I was referring to Mr. Higginbotham,” he said. How could a man sound both lazy and impatient at once?
“There is no Mr. Higginbotham.” Out of habit, she dropped her gaze to the unrelieved black of her woolen dress and heaved a mournful sigh. “At least, not anymore.”
It was a show of sorrow she had made many times, and always to the purpose. After the initial murmuring of pity, people looked past a respectable widow in her weeds, even a young one. Which was exactly how Jane wanted it.
In truth, there had never been a Mr. Higginbotham. Jane had invented him too: the perfect man, as kind, as gentle, as unlike a Robin Ratliff character, either hero or villain, as she could make him. Most important, he’d been generous enough to leave her with a widow’s independence before she was even of age.
In addition to privacy, the assumed name of Mrs. Higginbotham also provided Jane with an extra measure of protection from anyone who wished her ill—or who would wish her ill, if they knew the truth. A society that frowned on female ambition. That threatening letter writer. Her family.
Not a soul from London to the Scottish Highlands recognized her as--
“Miss Quayle?”
At that, she jerked up her head. She had been so busy schooling her expression into something appropriately doleful, she had not realized the stranger had turned fully to face her. Now that he had doffed his hat, she could see his wavy dark brown hair and the thick brows that framed expressive hazel eyes.
A familiar face, and not only in the sense of easygoing. Known to her.
Or at least, known to the woman she had once been.
Bewilderment, surprise, disbelief skated across Lieutenant Thomas Sutherland’s sun-browned features as he took a tentative step toward her, one hand extended. She could almost fancy he had found something for which he’d long been searching and was afraid one false move might drive it away again.
Further evidence that her mind was prone to foolish fancies tonight.
* * * *
Want to read more? Pre-order here, and Who’s That Earl will appear on your e-reader August 18!
©Susanna Craig 2020