Part 20 (1/2)

”It's tricky, you know.” The duke still appeared fascinated by the coffee and would not look Lucas in the eye. ”Y'see, I need Christina here with me. So much to do at Kilmory, don't you know, what with the estate and the household and everything....” He waved a vague hand around. ”I'd be lost without her.”

”You have an estate manager and a housekeeper and an army of servants, sir,” Lucas said, holding on to his temper with the greatest effort. He wondered if this was what had happened when the duke had broken the match between Christina and Douglas McGill. Except he was no McGill and he was not giving her up.

”Not the same at all,” the duke groused. ”No, indeed, not the same. So you see...” He spread his hands. ”Can't allow it, I'm afraid. All there is to it.”

”You do appreciate, Your Grace,” Robert Methven intervened swiftly, shooting Lucas a warning glance as he half rose from his chair, ”that Mr. Black does not need your permission to wed Lady Christina? He is asking out of courtesy only. She is of age and so may make her own decisions.”

”Well, we'll see,” the duke said comfortably. ”Can't imagine Christina wanting to leave me. Far too set in her ways, y'know. We'll see.”

Lucas was starting to dislike the Duke of Forres even more than he had done previously. The man was self-absorbed to a shocking extent. He itched to grab Forres by the neck cloth and shake him. He caught Jack's eye. Jack looked as though he wanted to intervene, but Lucas shook his head slightly. He would fight this particular battle later, and he would fight it to the end. But for now he had another issue he wanted to raise.

”There is another matter I wished to discuss with you, Your Grace,” Lucas said. He felt Jack and Robert draw a little closer, felt the tension build in the air. ”The brooch that you gave your daughter as a birthday gift-a very fine brooch of silver and amethysts-where did that come from?”

For a moment the duke looked utterly blank, but then his face cleared. ”Oh, by Jove,” he said, ”I remember that! Elegant piece. I found it in a shop in Edinburgh. I picked up my little icon there, as well!” He jumped to his feet and scurried off to fetch the icon, putting it into Lucas's hands. ”Splendid, isn't it?” He was beaming with uncomplicated pleasure. ”Couldn't believe my luck.”

”A shop in Edinburgh,” Lucas said. His voice was not quite steady. ”What sort of shop?”

The duke looked slightly s.h.i.+fty. ”A p.a.w.nshop,” he admitted. ”I like to buy gifts on the cheap if I can, but I didn't want Christina to know that.”

Lucas put the icon down slowly. There was a ring of truth in the duke's words. The man was completely guileless. He might be tight with his fortune, but he was no criminal. Yet this had to be more than a coincidence. Lucas looked at Robert, who was frowning.

”When did you make the trip to Edinburgh, sir?” Robert asked.

The duke rubbed his head absentmindedly. ”Let me see...was it November? No, December. Christmas!” He looked as though he was expecting a reward for this triumphant feat of memory. ”We spent Christmas in Edinburgh,” he repeated. ”You remember, Methven, Rutherford.” He glanced across at Jack. ”You all came to join us.”

Jack nodded. ”We did.”

December. Less than a month after Peter had died. Lucas felt a s.h.i.+ver as though the ghost of the past had brushed him. Could someone from Kilmory have robbed and murdered Peter and seen the trip to Edinburgh as a means to rid themselves of the stolen goods, not foreseeing the terrible coincidence that had led the duke to the very same p.a.w.nshop?

”Who else went with you?” Lucas asked.

”Took my valet,” the duke said, rubbing his chin. ”No need to take the other servants. We have a staff at the house in Charlotte Square. Christina came, too, of course,” he added, as an afterthought. ”There was no one else.”

Christina.

Lucas would never, ever believe that Christina was guilty. It simply was not possible.

”I think there was someone else,” he said slowly. ”Wasn't there, Your Grace?”

The duke flushed. ”No,” he said sharply. ”No one.”

”Alice Parmenter,” Lucas said. ”She is your mistress.” He heard rather than saw both Jack and Robert s.h.i.+ft with surprise. ”I suspect Mrs. Parmenter did not travel with you,” he continued. ”She certainly would not have stayed with you, but I think she was in Edinburgh, too. Did you install her in a house somewhere nearby, Your Grace? Somewhere convenient to visit?”

The duke looked s.h.i.+fty. ”What if I did? No law against a man keeping a mistress, what? We're all men of the world.” He looked around at Jack, at Robert, looked as though he was about to make some infelicitous remark about them probably keeping mistresses, too, and then thought better of it. ”This is nothing to the purpose,” he said testily. ”What if Alice was there? d.a.m.ned if I see why I have to account to any of you for it!”

”You don't, Your Grace,” Lucas said, standing up. ”But Mrs. Parmenter does. She needs to account for the murder of my brother.”

CHRISTINA STOOD IN the doorway of the Great Hall. It had been decorated for dinner and then a ball afterward and it looked stunning. Vases overflowed with fresh flowers in tumbling profusion. Banners of green and gold with the arms of MacMorlan drifted down from the high rafters. Candlelight sparkled on silver. Everywhere the ladies of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society mingled and fluttered like so many exotic birds.

The only problem was that no one felt very festive. The household had been utterly shaken by the arrest of Alice Parmenter for murder, robbery and dealing in stolen goods. Alice had been taken away to jail in Fort William, complaining loudly that the death of Peter Galitsin had been an accident. She had seen him at the castle and thought him young, rich, naive and ripe for robbery. She had followed him back to the inn that night and sent him a message to meet her on the track above the cliffs. She said she had only taken a knife to persuade him to part with his money. He had been stabbed in the scuffle because he had tried to stop her when she'd taken the icon from him. She added bitterly that had the duke been a little more generous to his mistress she would have had no need to steal, but he was as mean as an old miser and inadequate in bed into the bargain.

Galloway had looked as though he was about to keel over with shock when he heard the news. Gertrude had been appalled, more by the fact that the duke had stooped so low than the news that the housekeeper was a murderer.

”The housekeeper!” she kept saying. ”How could he?”

”Never mind, Gertrude,” Lucy had said. ”It could have been much worse. I hear Alice was trying to persuade Papa into marriage-imagine her as d.u.c.h.ess of Forres!”

Gertrude had looked even more horrified and had rushed off, perhaps, as Mairi mischievously said, to find Angus in the hope that it was not too late to produce an heir. The news that the duke might yet consider remarriage had also seemed to spur Lachlan into action as he had set off for home and a reconciliation with Dulcibella.

”We'll see how long that lasts,” Lucy said darkly.

Christina had wanted to cancel the ball, but the members of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society were already arriving and Lucas had a.s.sured her that he wanted the event to go ahead. He had even brought her the flowers he had promised to decorate the Great Hall: great armfuls of scented roses and hollyhocks, jasmine and anemones, acorns and pinecones that smelled sweet and fresh.

”It's a triumph, Christina,” Lucy said, patting her sister's arm. ”Of course, Gertrude is taking all the credit, but I think we all know who did the hard work.”

Mairi eased herself onto a chair with a heartfelt sigh. She might be seven months pregnant but Christina was quick to note that she still looked like a fas.h.i.+on plate from La Belle a.s.semblee.

”I feel like a whale,” Mairi complained. ”There will be no dancing for me tonight.”

”I should think not, Mairi.” Gertrude, at her most matronly and disapproving, with a puce turban and pheasant feathers, gave her sister-in-law's pregnant stomach a look of profound disapproval. ”You are not fit to be seen in public! I cannot imagine what you are thinking, parading about in this state!”

”Thank you, Gertrude,” Mairi said. ”I don't believe in hiding myself away just because I am pregnant. It is a perfectly natural state. Allegra looks very pretty tonight,” she added, nodding to where their niece, celestially fair in a modest spangled cream gown, was talking with her husband and a couple of the bluestocking ladies. ”Marriage suits her. She glows. Perhaps,” she added, ”she is enceinte, as well.”

Gertrude made a sound like a horse snorting and sped off across the room to accost the happy couple.

”Mairi,” Christina said, trying to suppress a smile, ”you are very bad.”

”Well, it could be true,” Mairi said, easing herself more comfortably onto the chair. ”It seems they have been wed at least a month and Angus and Gertrude had no notion.”

”That is not surprising,” Christina said. ”They notice nothing beyond themselves.”

”You didn't realize, either,” Mairi pointed out.

”I did wonder if they were lovers,” Christina said, ”but for all her sophisticated airs, Allegra is very young. I thought I was imagining things.”

”At least with Allegra's marriage to occupy her, Gertrude is not harping on at you about yours, Christina,” Lucy said with a giggle. ”I think in time she may take quite well to having a Russian prince as a brother-in-law. I have already heard her boasting to Lady Dorney that he is a relative of the czar.”

”Lucas will hate that,” Mairi said. ”You know how he shuns his aristocratic lineage.” She broke off as Lucas came in. ”Oh, my goodness,” she said, fanning herself. ”Christina, you are such a lucky girl.”

Lucas was flanked by Jack on one side and Robert on the other, but he did not look like a man who needed the support. In fact, the three of them looked what they were: shockingly handsome, slightly dangerous and enough to make the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society members swoon. Christina realized, with a catch of her breath, that she had never seen Lucas in formal evening attire. She had seen him in livery and in his working garb, but now in the stark black-and-white of formal dress he looked magnificent. He was looking around the ballroom. He was looking for her.

They had had no opportunity to talk since that morning, and now her heart turned over at what might happen next. She had told Lucas he could stay at Kilmory until he had solved the mystery of Peter's death. With Alice arrested, that mystery was solved. She wondered if Lucas would leave. She wondered if she really wanted him to go. She did not know the answer to either question and she felt hopelessly confused.

Her breath trapped in her chest. What scared her was not the way Lucas could command a room, nor even the spectacular good looks that still had the ranks of the Highland bluestocking ladies buzzing, but the way he could make her forget all reason. There was a dangerously sensual gleam in his black eyes that made her toes curl in her satin slippers. She desired Lucas Black, but she was not sure she could trust herself to love him again, or trust him not to betray her.

He showed every sign of crossing the room to join her but was waylaid by several ladies clamoring for an introduction.

”Lucas is most shockingly handsome, isn't he,” Lucy said. She giggled. ”If Lady Dorney gets any closer she will practically be wearing him. She always was a woman who believed that a cause was not lost until the knot was tied.”