Romancing the Scot (The Pennington Family) Read online

  He stared at her lips and moved closer.

  “Send me back.”

  Chapter 3

  Grace had no idea how long she’d been wandering in the fog. She didn’t know what lay ahead. Tall trees looming overhead shut out all light. Tangled undergrowth dragged at her shackled feet. Eyes of predators fixed on her from the shadows. Too exhausted to care, she sank to the ground. The smell of earth and pine filled her senses.

  Confusion took hold of her. Her stomach clenched as the green world around her began to spin. Voices echoed from a distance. Around her, the forest dissolved, falling away like a painted canvas. She was not in a forest, but rather a bedchamber. The words became distinct.

  “Her lungs have been affected, m’lord. But from what you tell me, that’s only to be expected.”

  Grace peered at the man sitting on the bed beside her. Thick spectacles sat in a bed of bushy white brows atop a red, pock-marked nose. The ruddy face bore the deeply etched lines of advanced years.

  She tried to draw a breath but couldn’t. Why didn’t they move the rock that was sitting on her chest?

  She was dying. She’d been imprisoned in that basket. Sealed up alive in that tomb of wicker and wood. Lowered into the grave of some ship’s hold. Her cries had gone unanswered until finally she had no more will to call out, no more strength to fight against the feelings of desperation and anguish. The hatches were sealed, the darkness was complete, and time lost all meaning. How many days or weeks she’d lain in that basket, she didn’t know. Thirst and hunger tore at her insides for a while, but those afflictions too disappeared, only to be replaced by a vague desire for the end to come.

  But that silent release was still far off, and painful thoughts of her dear father came back over and over. Finally, to combat the madness that she was certain would come, her mind conjured another world. Pages of books lit the darkness. Lines of poems and ballads appeared before her eyes. Everything she’d ever read came back to her now.

  Her father called it her “talent.” Grace remembered everything: names, faces, numbers, and more. Her friends saw it as entertainment. They tested her and laughed as she recited chapters of books she’d read through only once. She could name the position of any card after having the deck displayed for only a moment. Some who knew of her talent referred to her as an oddity. A French scholar had once insisted on studying her. But her father would not allow it, and she was grateful for his intervention.

  On that ship, locked in what she assumed would be her coffin, Grace had begun to recite aloud the words locked in her memory. Line after line, poem after poem, Irish ballad and French, text book and novel—each one reminding her that she was still alive.

  But her voice had eventually grown quieter until only the pounding sound of the sea remained, the creaking of wood, and the sloshing of water below. Finally, even those sounds disappeared and silence claimed the darkness.

  “I’d be sorely remiss in offering any words of optimism,” the old man said. His face moved out of her line of sight. “I can bleed her, m’lord, but I don’t know what good it’ll do her.”

  No blood. Grace had seen too much of it in Antwerp. The blackening pool around the valet. The deep red stain on her father’s chest. While she’d been confined in the crate, her mind had returned to those moments. Awake or asleep, it didn’t make a difference. She kept seeing the dead. Even now Grace’s eyes burned, but she doubted she had a tear left to shed.

  “No,” another man replied. “No letting of her blood. She’s not strong enough.”

  She’d heard that voice before. The same deep and commanding tone. The man who’d lifted her out of that wicker tomb and carried her through the rain. She’d recited an Irish ballad for him, confused him with her words.

  Safe, he’d said so confidently, placing her in the bed.

  If he only knew how wrong he was.

  Grace tried to focus on the tall, dark-haired blur hovering in the distance. Broad shoulders encased in a black coat dominated the wall beyond. She could hardly make out his features, but she heard the concern in his tone.

  She tried to breathe again and struggled. Coughing wracked her body, and a searing pain ripped through her chest. Where was death now? Where was her release? Hadn’t she suffered enough?

  When the spasms subsided a little, someone lifted her head from the pillow and spooned bitter medicine between her lips. Grace choked on it, and her body responded violently. She gasped in vain for air, and then the room went black around her once again.

  * * *

  Hugh had seen enough death. He didn’t want to witness it now.

  Watching this woman gasp for breath brought back again the haunting memories of his loved ones, dying so far from home. She’d been murmuring lines from a ballad. He didn’t know the work, but it sounded like the farewell of a soldier dying on the battlefield.

  Oh mother, adieu forever . . .

  I am now on my dying bed . . .

  If I had lived I’d have been brave . . .

  I droop my youthful head . . .

  Our bones do moulder . . .

  Weeping-willows o’er us grow . . .

  Hugh battled to suppress, for the thousandth time, his bitter anger at the French tyrant and his bloody war.

  He stared at the woman, wondering who was missing her now. Like the mother in the poem, who was waiting for her, anguishing over what had become of her, not knowing if she was alive or dead?

  Hugh hadn’t even known his wife and son were suffering until it was too late. Amelia had brought their precious child across the water to Spain without sending word to him. As Hugh and his light cavalry fought their way across Spain, she was waiting for him in Vigo. While he and his men protected the flank of the British Army on that horrible retreat through snow and freezing rain, Amelia and his three-year-old boy were dying of camp fever, wracked with pain, gasping for air, and clinging desperately to life. But it was no use. They died there in the seaside village near Corunna with no one to care for them, no family to comfort them, in the squalor of that godforsaken place, cut off from help and overcome with pestilence.

  And he’d not been there when they needed him.

  Hugh cursed the French again, as he had a million times. Later, in the fields of France and Belgium, he’d made them bleed for it, even as they continued to cut down his comrades around him. So many times he’d thrown himself into the thickest fray of battle, never caring if he lived or died. How many times had he wished he had died?

  The woman drifted into a restless sleep, if that’s what it was. If she died now, he didn’t want to see it.

  Hugh strode out of the room and stopped. Looking down the hallway at the long-unused rooms of this wing, he felt the pain coursing through him with the same fierceness it had the day he learned of his wife and son’s deaths. This part of the east wing had once been a place of joy for him. No longer. He still came up here, in spite of the pain it brought him. He had to. It was all he had left of them.

  He looked back at the door where the woman lay, gamely struggling to breathe. She was a fighter, to be sure. But he couldn’t fathom how she’d come to be in that blasted crate.

  He descended the stairs and went out into the yard. A light rain was still falling, though the lightning and rumbling thunder had long ago moved off to the east.

  He followed the drive down past the stables to the carriage barn and went in.

  Staring at the open crate, Hugh tried to calculate how long she must have been trapped in there. The basket was shipped from Antwerp. Someone had nailed the box shut. How was it possible that she would go unnoticed, unless she had intentionally hidden in there? She could have been drugged or knocked out and secreted in the basket. If that were the case, she’d been left in there intentionally to die. Or perhaps someone else had failed to intercept the shipment and let her out before she’d left Antwerp. The possibilities were numerous, but none of them left him feeling any easier about it.

  Hugh inspected the crate. Nothing ou
t of the ordinary struck him. Looking into the balloon gondola, he considered the torment of being confined in such a space. It was amazing that she’d survived at all.

  Something caught his eye in the bottom of the basket. Several coins. Climbing in, he picked them up and held them to the light.

  American coins.

  Chapter 4

  For over four decades now, management of Baronsford had resided in Walter Truscott’s capable hands. A cousin to Hugh’s father, Truscott was widely respected as the reason the Penningtons’ estate served as a model of care and accomplishment in this corner of Scotland.

  Hugh was kept abreast of everything, but his position in the judiciary kept him busy. So Truscott oversaw the work of the steward and the farm managers, and made all operational decisions, whether the issue pertained to the home farm or the tenantry. No cottage was built or mill repaired without his authorization. No livestock was bought or sold, and no field was plowed without his knowledge. No farmhand was hired or fired without his final approval.

  It had been Truscott’s suggestion to offer a job to Darby after he wrongly spent time in the local jail. Having made arrangements with the Lennox steward, Walter had offered the blacksmith a position at Baronsford the morning after being released.

  Upon returning to Baronsford after two days in Edinburgh, Hugh found Darby had taken them up on the offer. Standing by a stable door, Truscott gestured toward the nearby smithy.

  “Hard worker, intelligent, and capable in his trade,” Truscott told him. “He’ll be an asset for us.”

  “You never guess wrong, Walter.” Hugh handed his horse over to one of the grooms. “Living arrangements for him?”

  “Taken care of.”

  The French Wars and migration by many workers to cities like Edinburgh over the past two decades had diminished the numbers of cotters who worked and farmed around Baronsford, as well as the population of Melrose Village. More and more Irish vagrants were showing up in the area, but many cottages sat empty.

  “He’s also requested a few moments of your time,” Truscott said. “Says it’s important that he speak with you. I thought it might be less intimidating for him if you heard what he had to say out here, rather than in your study.”

  Hugh was impatient to talk to Jo about their mystery patient. He assumed she was still alive. He’d received no word to the contrary while he was in Edinburgh.

  A few moments wouldn’t make a difference. Leaving Truscott behind, he strode to the open doors of the smithy. The tall man was working alongside a soot-covered helper.

  “You wished to speak with me, Mr. Darby?”

  Seeing him, the blacksmith hung up his leather apron and came out. Hugh motioned toward the kennels and they moved across to the low building. Whatever he had to say, the man might as well have some privacy doing it. A dozen small hounds came across the fenced-in enclosure, tails wagging.

  “First off, I wanted to thank you, m’lord.” The blacksmith took off his cap, clutching it in two hands. “I know I’d still be rotting in that jail if not for you.”

  “No need to thank me. I like to think we do a decent job of dispensing the law in this region. But what happened to you was wrong.”

  “That’s my life, m’lord. I was born and raised in the East End of London. A tough place,” he added. “Coming north for this job, I was hoping for a change.”

  “I can assure you that you’ll be treated fairly at Baronsford and paid according to your worth. Mr. Truscott is a fair man.”

  “To be sure, I already see that.”

  The cap continued to twist in his large fists. Hugh had spent enough years on the bench to know when a man was building his courage to say more. He leaned over the fence and petted the dogs.

  “I’m grateful for your generosity, m’lord. I’ve met with only kindness from everyone since I arrived yesterday. But . . .” He paused, his gaze scouring the ground between them. “I wish to bring no trouble to your door. You been kind to me, so I’d like to be square with you. Your neighbor who was to employ me didn’t know everything about this. I’m no murderer or a thief, but there are folk who look down on—”

  “I’m aware of your previous arrest in London, Mr. Darby,” Hugh said, facing him. “After the Spa Fields riots last December, you spent twenty-six days in jail before being released. No charge was brought against you.”

  This past December’s riots had been the culmination of a decade of discontent over high prices and taxes after the French Wars. And London’s poorest were not the only ones who went out onto the streets demonstrating. To the surprise of many, a large number of aristocrats joined the so-called ‘rabble.’

  “You know this and still you took me on?”

  “Protesting against the government is a time-honored right.” He didn’t want to mention the laws Parliament had enacted since those riots.

  The blacksmith stopped abusing his cap and let out a relieved breath.

  “We have a need for tradesmen here,” Hugh said, changing the topic. “And Mr. Truscott tells me you’re an able blacksmith.”

  “I work hard, m’lord.”

  A different man stood before him now. One who was free of the shadows of the past.

  “Excellent. In fact, I could use your help with a certain project of mine, if you’re willing.”

  “I’d be happy to help, m’lord.”

  “Good. I’ll arrange it with Mr. Truscott on when he can lend your services to me.”

  Hugh needed a metalworker to assist him with his ballooning, and he had no doubt Truscott was thinking just that when he hired Darby.

  A few moments later, when Hugh reached the house, Jo was waiting for him. Her brisk greeting and troubled expression indicated that she needed his attention right away.

  “Library?” he asked.

  “The downstairs library will be fine.” She turned to one of the footmen standing nearby. “Please ask Mrs. Henson to send in some tea for his lordship.”

  Not waiting for him, she walked off in that direction. Hugh shed his hat and cloak and followed her.

  She was pacing the floor when he entered. Jo was generally calm in temperament. She was a natural peacemaker, patient in dealing with the nuisance of mundane disagreements. The only time her emotions surfaced, it was because of the family. When the need arose, she became a lioness protecting the pride.

  “You’re wearing a path in the carpet, Jo.” He closed the door behind him. “What is it?”

  She stopped, facing him. “It’s about our guest.”

  “What about her? Has she died?”

  “No, she’s still alive, though she continues to float in and out of consciousness. Dr. Namby was here at noon. He still says there is little hope of her surviving. He’s also worried about contagion because she was subjected for so long to the noxious vapors of the ship’s hold.”

  “Is this what has you worried?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been with her since we brought her to the house. Anna’s been the only servant helping me. We’ve seen to her care, and we’re both doing fine after three days of it.”

  Knowing his sister wouldn’t stop pacing until she said what was on her mind, Hugh sat on a sofa.

  “Were you able to find anything about her while you were in Edinburgh?”

  “I went down to the shipping office at Leith and asked a few discreet questions about the handling of the crate,” he told her. “No one had an inkling there was any problem at all. So I sent my clerk, Aston MacKay, to Antwerp to find out what he can about any missing American woman. We should hear back from him within a fortnight. Until then, I’m still hopeful our guest will awaken and tell us herself how she ended up in that crate. In the meantime, I wish to bring no extra attention to her while she is recovering.”

  As a judge familiar with the darker sides of human nature, Hugh was well aware of the ugly exaggerations and falsehoods that could spread if her situation were made public. She was ill and had no way of protecting herself.

&nbs
p; “Did you ask Dr. Namby to keep her situation private?”

  “I did. And he agrees. She should be spared unnecessary excitement.” Jo resumed her pacing. “She’s been talking in her sleep.”

  Hugh smiled to himself at her poetic recital and her insistence that he understood it was a ballad. “Has she divulged anything useful?”

  “Her manner of speech is quite refined. And I’ve heard her murmur or call out not just in English, but in German and Spanish and French. It appears she’s proficient in those languages. And she likes to recite poetry.”

  He himself was a constant reader, not so much poems and novels, but the law journals and anything pertaining to history and science. He respected women who read, and it appeared this one did.

  “So she’s well-educated,” Hugh commented.

  “And wellborn, I think. The quality of her traveling dress says much about her station.” Jo faced him again. “But that isn’t all I’ve learned.”

  The servant bringing in tea interrupted their conversation. After dismissing her, Jo poured a cup for Hugh and sat next to him.

  “What else?” he asked.

  She placed a velvet pouch between them on the sofa.

  “What is this?”

  “It might be the reason why someone was cross with her.”

  “If someone nailed her into that crate, they were more than cross. They were trying to kill her. What’s in there and where did you find it?”

  “The pouch was sewn into the padded waistline of her dress. We found it when Mrs. Henson took the garment down to be laundered.”

  Jo shook a large opaque stone into her palm.

  A diamond. Uncut. The largest he’d ever seen. Who carries something this valuable? Hugh thought.

  He put the tea cup down. “Let me see.”

  “Have you ever seen a gem this size?”

  “Heavy,” he commented.

  He stood and moved to the window, holding it up to the afternoon light.

  “Do you think it’s a diamond?” she asked.

  Hugh placed the stone against the window and scratched a small ‘X’ on the glass. The condition they found her in had to be directly tied to this. He’d ruled on crimes committed over minuscule amounts of wealth.