Part 10 (1/2)

”He dined at the castle,” Christina said. The stiffness was back in her voice, as though she did not want to talk about it. ”They all did, all four of them. They were young men on a tour of Europe who had wanted to see something of the west coast because it has such a wild and romantic reputation.”

A cloud covered the sun for a moment. Lucas thought he saw her s.h.i.+ver.

”What was he like?” he asked.

A sudden smile lit her eyes. ”Oh, he was charming! Funny and sweet and eager for the experience of travel and so young...” Her smile vanished. ”It was a dreadful tragedy,” she said. ”We were all very upset.” She spread her hands. ”I tried to help...afterward. The tutor wanted to return to Edinburgh as quickly as possible. He was a superst.i.tious man. I think he was afraid something might happen to another of his charges.”

”Probably afraid for his job,” Lucas said. He could only imagine what his stepfather might have done by way of retribution to the man who had failed to protect his only son and heir.

Christina slanted a look up at him. ”You are a cynic, Mr. Ross.”

”On the contrary,” Lucas said. ”I am a realist.”

Christina sighed. ”The authorities investigated. They sent men from London but they could not find the culprits. They think he fell foul of some ruffians who make a living from highway robbery and theft. It is unusual these days, but not unheard of.” There was vivid regret in her expression. ”I am only sorry he was so unlucky to fall in with such a band near Kilmory.”

To Lucas's mind there had been nothing of bad luck about it. He wondered if robbery alone would have been sufficient motive for murder. It seemed unlikely. Peter had been rich and his possessions valuable, but there had been no need to kill him for them.

”The papers were full of the lurid details of the case,” he said. ”It was a sensation.”

”Really?” Christina's expression showed her distaste. ”Well, scandal sheets will print anything if they think it will sell more copies. How unpleasant to make profit from it, when it was such a tragedy. That must have hurt his relatives even more.” She fell silent for a moment. ”He spoke of his family, you know,” she said. ”His father, his brother...” A frown touched her eyes. ”There had been some estrangement, I believe. He was so happy to find his brother again. He hero-wors.h.i.+pped him, as young men are so inclined to do. I often wonder-” She hesitated. ”How his brother must have felt when he heard the news.”

He felt angry, cheated, despairing...

Lucas felt an echo of that anger ripple through him. Of course she could not know of his connection to Peter, but it hurt to hear her speak of him; it felt like an open wound. It was even worse that she spoke with such compa.s.sion when it could have been the jackals in her smuggling gang who had stabbed his brother and taken the signet ring from his finger and the clothes from his back and had sold his belongings.

He cleared his throat. ”You are always worrying about the feelings of others,” he said. ”What makes you grieve for his brother when you do not even know him?” The words came out more harshly than he had intended, but she did not seem surprised.

”I know what it is to lose someone dear to me,” she said quietly. Her blue gaze was clouded. ”My mother died when I was young. My life changed completely.” She looked away across the sweep of the park. ”One is so unprepared for loss,” she said, half to herself, ”and yet one's whole future can change in an instant. I think it better not to love than to lay oneself open to that pain.”

”You have too much of a loving spirit to do that,” Lucas said roughly.

Don't become like me, he thought. It was too late for him-he had cut himself off from love many years before when his stepfather had cast him out. Christina was different, though. She cared too much for people to deny the love that was in her.

”I am sorry you lost your mother at a young age,” he said. ”I imagine that must have been very hard for you. But it does not mean that you should never risk loving someone again.”

Something flickered in her eyes, like a door closing. Lucas had the strangest sensation that she was deliberately shutting down the memory. ”I imagine you must have found it difficult, too.” Her gaze appraised him. ”You mentioned that you were an orphan.”

”My mother died when I was twelve years old,” Lucas admitted. ”Yes, it was hard.”

”And your father?”

”I never knew him. I was illegitimate, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

He heard her catch her breath at the bitterness of his tone. He had not intended to show his feelings quite so openly. It was completely unfamiliar to him, uncomfortable, strange. Yet her gaze on him was steady and sure, with no pity, only compa.s.sion in it and the same understanding she had shown that night in the tower when he had admitted he was orphaned.

”It is hard for a boy to grow up fatherless,” she said. ”I imagine you had to learn very quickly how to survive.”

”Yes,” Lucas said. ”I begged, I stole food, I picked pockets, I was cold, always hungry. There were plenty like me in the back streets of Edinburgh.” He shrugged. ”As I grew older, I got work sometimes. I didn't want to be a thief all my life.”

”How did you come to train as a servant?” There was a spark of interest in her voice that was not feigned. ”It must have been difficult to persuade anyone to give you that chance.”

”By a very roundabout route,” Lucas said truthfully. He did not want to lie to her. In fact, the urge to tell her everything was dangerously strong. He did not understand why. ”We were speaking of you,” he said. ”Do not think that I had not noticed that you turned the subject.”

She laughed. ”Oh, I am a very dull topic.”

”I don't believe that,” Lucas said. ”I heard that after your mother died you gave up your own future to raise your younger brothers and sisters.”

Again he saw that flicker of expression in her eyes, a flash of pain, but her voice when she answered was quite steady.

”Who told you that?”

”Servants talk,” Lucas said. He was not even sure why he was pus.h.i.+ng her on it except that it interested him. He wanted to know more about Lady Christina MacMorlan.

”Of course they do.” She sounded weary. ”Well, there was not a great deal of future to give up.”

”I heard there was a betrothal,” Lucas said. ”A marriage of your own.”

”It was hard for them.” She swept aside her own loss with a dismissive wave of the hand. It was as though it simply did not count-or was too painful to remember. ”My little sisters were so young when mama died. And Papa... He could not cope on his own. He needed me.”

”You worked very hard to keep your family together,” Lucas said. ”You still do. The whole village is your family now.” She had put everyone else first for years, he thought. She had taken the love that might otherwise have been lavished on a family of her own and had given it freely to those about her. It was generous, it was endearing, but it was also maddening that she had so little thought for her own needs and desires. He wondered what those desires had been before the Duke of Forres's selfish whim had set them aside.

”Family is important.” She spoke simply. ”People are important. We all need to belong.”

”I don't agree,” Lucas said. He thought of the Black Strath, the estate his father had left him, another place where he did not belong. ”I have no real home,” he said, ”or family, and I am happy enough.”

”Are you?” Suddenly the look in her blue eyes was keen and far too perceptive. It felt as though she could see right through him: see the hopes he had cherished of building a relations.h.i.+p with his brother and the pain of loss; see the fierceness with which he rejected all ties that could bind him, hurt him. He had a rule to keep himself apart. He had broken it for Peter and had suffered for it. He would never take that risk again.

”Well...” She brushed the matter away as though she had realized that this was not the sort of conversation she should be having with the gardener. ”I do not suppose we should be discussing such personal matters,” she said. A hint of color came into her face. ”I am not sure why I talk to you so much, Mr. Ross. It is quite inexplicable.”

Lucas smiled at her. ”Perhaps you view me as a confessor figure,” he suggested. ”Like a priest.”

She gave a snort of laughter, quickly repressed. ”Anyone less like a priest...” she said.

The cedar walk opened out into a broad expanse of parkland. Christina paused, her gaze fixed on the distant boundary where the bank and ditch of the ha-ha separated the park from the bracken-and-heather-clad hillside beyond.

”Did you go to see Eyre?” Lucas asked. He wondered if the riding officer had kept his word.

Christina's gaze came back to fix on his face. ”No,” she said. ”There was no need.” She frowned slightly. ”Word came this morning that he had released Callum MacFarlane. Perhaps he has some humanity in him after all.”

”I wouldn't bank on it,” Lucas said. ”You heard that he burned a barn over at Kilcoy when he was hunting for the peat-reek? Unfortunately he did not trouble to check first whether anyone was inside.”

He felt a shudder rack her. She turned to look at him, face pale, eyes frightened. ”What happened?”

”Some children almost died,” Lucas said harshly. ”They had been playing and hid in fear when they saw the riding officers coming. They breathed in the smoke.”

He heard her catch her own breath. ”Will they live?”