A Highland Duchess Read online

  This was too much.

  This trial might break her.

  She thought back to their conversations. Had Ian ever said anything about his family? Had he mentioned Bryce at all? He’d been hesitant to speak of himself, only mentioning Lochlaven when she’d pressed him.

  A thought occurred to her, one that had her sitting upright. Juliana glanced at her curiously, but she didn’t speak to her maid. Instead, she stared at her drunken husband.

  Dear God, was she going to have her wedding night at Lochlaven?

  Surely God would not be so cruel.

  Unless Bryce was unable to perform at all.

  Two bottles rolled on the floor of the carriage, another was wedged between Bryce’s body and the side of the carriage. She pulled it free with two fingers, noted that it was empty, then gingerly placed it on the floor.

  “Are you given to such bouts of drunkenness often? I ask merely because I would like to be prepared for the rest of our marriage.”

  He blinked at her, his eyes bleary, his smile mocking.

  “You’re dead,” he said calmly. “You are sitting there on that chair, Mother, but I know you’re dead.”

  She exchanged a quick look with Juliana, who was wearing an expression of shock no doubt the twin of hers. She’d never witnessed such an effect of spirits on a man.

  Bryce moaned, as if he knew she was thinking uncharitable thoughts of him. She glanced at him again. His skin appeared pale and there were droplets of moisture upon his brow.

  She glanced at Juliana. “Do you think he’s ill?” she asked.

  Juliana only looked helplessly at her, and Emma realized how unfair it was to solicit her assistance. Juliana was a lady’s maid, not a sickroom attendant.

  Should she try to wake him?

  Unwilling wife or not, she really should be of some assistance to Bryce, if for no other reason than to protect his pride. It would not do to reach Lochlaven with him in such a condition.

  “Bryce.” She raised her voice and repeated his name.

  He didn’t move or respond.

  She leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee, but he didn’t react to her touch, even when she coupled the gesture with speaking his name again.

  He didn’t rouse.

  Now she was truly becoming worried. She’d never seen anyone so thoroughly inebriated that he couldn’t be awakened.

  She looked for her reticule, found it, and withdrew the small crystal bottle of sol volatile. As Juliana watched, she uncapped the vial, reached across the seat and held it beneath Bryce’s nose.

  He didn’t move.

  She glanced at Juliana. Her maid reached out and took the bottle from her. From time to time the mixture needed to be refreshed, but from Juliana’s look as she sniffed the pierced top, the sol volatile was still pungent.

  “Something’s wrong,” Emma said. “If he didn’t react to smelling salts, then perhaps he’s truly ill and not inebriated it all.”

  “What shall we do, Your Grace?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said, feeling more helpless than she ever had in her entire life.

  His lips were so pale they could barely be discerned from the rest of his sallow face. As the moments passed, his breathing grew increasingly labored. Why hadn’t she seen that he was ill?

  Because his being drunk was so much more convenient. She could feel superior, and justified in disliking him.

  Shame warmed her as she moved to sit beside Bryce. She placed her hand on his forehead. His skin was clammy and cold.

  He began to retch, and as Juliana drew back her skirts, Emma reached up and opened the grill above Bryce’s head.

  “Driver,” she said, raising her voice so the coachman could hear. “Stop the carriage as soon as you safely can.”

  A moment later the carriage slowed, and finally came to a stop.

  The man Bryce had hired in Inverness opened the door a few minutes later. “Is there a problem, madam?” he asked, removing his hat.

  “Please assist my husband,” she said, grateful that after one look at Bryce, the man understood what was needed.

  Bryce might have been correct about the distance to Lochlaven, had they not been required to stop so often on the way. As the hours passed, he was increasingly ill, and the coachman had been pressed into service more than once to lead him away so he might have some privacy. On the last occasion, the man came back and spoke to Emma, his voice earnest.

  “Madam,” he said. “There’s blood.”

  “Then we should attempt to reach Lochlaven as quickly as possible,” she said, pretending a calmness she didn’t feel.

  The coachman led Bryce back to the carriage, and Emma lent her assistance in getting her husband onto the seat. Bryce was trembling, and when she placed her palm against his forehead, it was to find that his skin was even colder than before. He curled into a ball in the corner of the carriage.

  Concerned, she turned to the coachman.

  “Go as quickly as you can,” she said. At least it wasn’t raining and the roads were fair.

  “Aye, that I’ll do,” he said, putting his fingers to the brim of his hat and nodding at her.

  In minutes they were on their way again.

  “Do you think it’s the cholera, madam?” Juliana asked, in as subdued a voice as she’d ever heard from her maid.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said, wishing she was more experienced.

  Juliana made a point of drawing as far away from Bryce as she could.

  As the carriage began to crest a hill, Emma glanced out the window to see the glint of sunlight on water. At the end of a thickly forested spear of land sat a sprawling, four-storied rectangular house in the Palladian style. Or perhaps it was five floors tall, if those small windows just beneath the roof led to servants’ quarters and were not simply to ventilate the attics. She counted twelve chimneys, which meant there were least forty-eight fireplaces in the structure.

  A large house, a prosperous dwelling, even situated as it was in the middle of a Scottish glen. She knew it was Lochlaven immediately from Ian’s description.

  Lochlaven was ringed by a stone wall constructed of a material darker in hue than the yellowish brick of the house itself. Easily twice the height of a man, the wall was marked by arched doorways and pediments topped with stone orbs.

  A gravel drive curved in front of the pediment-topped door. Two pillars flanked the three steps to the entrance.

  As soon as the carriage stopped, and without being instructed, the driver descended from his perch and ran to the door. His urgent knocking was answered immediately by a young maid attired in a white starched cap and matching apron. She glanced at the coachman and then at the carriage before saying something to him and disappearing from sight.

  The coachman returned to the carriage and opened the door, leaning inside to speak to Emma.

  “Assistance is coming, madam,” he said. “It’s a matter of minutes now.”

  She reached out and touched the coachman’s sleeve. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said softly. “Thank you, also, for getting us here safely.”

  The man look abashed at her thanks. “I was only doing my job, madam.”

  “With great skill,” she said, forcing a smile to her face.

  True to his word, assistance was on its way. Several brawny young men, followed by two maids and an older woman, were coming toward the carriage.

  The older woman held up her hand, halting the group a safe distance away.

  “You have someone ill?” she asked, her caution evident in the fact that she didn’t approach the carriage or allow her staff to do so.

  Emma couldn’t blame her. They could be anyone, and the passenger they carried could be ill from any number of horrid diseases.

  “I
am Mrs. McNair,” she said calmly, feeling strange announcing herself for the very first time. “My husband, Bryce McNair, is ill.”

  The older woman’s face changed instantly. “Mr. Bryce? Oh, why didn’t you say so?” She immediately began to direct the actions of her staff.

  In no time at all Bryce was whisked from the carriage and up the steps, disappearing into the sprawling house, leaving Emma to follow.

  Ian was tired and annoyed.

  Even though he’d opened his case, withdrawn his papers, and attempted to concentrate on his letter from a French confederate, he couldn’t concentrate. His reasoning was that if he submerged himself in his work, he’d be able to banish any thoughts of the Duchess of Herridge—or whatever her name was at the moment.

  He finally got to the second page of the man’s missive by the time they made it to Glen Affric, west of Loch Ness, a place that never failed to elicit his awe.

  Strong breezes carried the scent of the pine woods to him as bright sunlight glittered off the waters of Loch Ness. As he traveled through the forested part of the glen, shadows draped the carriage, and a hundred—or a thousand—birds chattered overhead as if they spoke of his travels. When they were through the forest, the steep peaks of mountains greeted him and the river sang its welcome.

  Caledonia.

  He put aside the letter, opened all the shades, and watched as his homeland unfolded, scenery that never failed to move him on an elemental level.

  The ruins of two castles dotted the landscape. Strong people had settled here, men and women like his own forebearers. They’d created a civilization in a land that offered little pity but compensated with an endless beauty.

  Whenever he traveled through this part of the glen, he remembered the “Highlanders’ Farewell,” a song his nurse had sung him.

  Thy brave, thy just, fall in the dust,

  On ruin’s brink they quiver,

  Heaven’s pitying ee is closed on thee,

  Adieu, adieu forever.

  His memory furnished the sight of Annie, with her bright smile and curly blond hair. He’d missed her greatly when she left him when he was seven, going to live in Inverness with her new husband. He’d visited her there twice in the last few years, a yearning to recapture his past causing him to seek her out. She had five children of her own, some of them near grown, a reminder to him that his own family was waiting to be born.

  His future stretched before him, and where once it was bright and filled with promise, now it appeared more than a little drab and dour.

  Damn Emma, and while he was at it, damn himself, too.

  Chapter 19

  Emma turned to Juliana, who had accompanied her from the carriage.

  “I’ll wait here, madam,” Juliana said, sinking down on a bench in the foyer.

  Emma didn’t argue with her but followed Mrs. Jenkins and the two men carrying Bryce.

  Lochlaven smelled clean and fresh, as if the breeze from the lake blew away any scents. She disliked large houses, knowing there were unopened rooms, not often visited, where secrets sat waiting to be revealed. Or perhaps that had only been Chavensworth.

  “The architect Sir William Bruce began the house in 1686, for the second Earl of Buchane. The second earl was instrumental in restoring Charles II to the throne,” Mrs. Jenkins said as they continued down the corridor.

  “I see,” Emma said, feeling that some acknowledgment, if not fawning, was in order as Mrs. Jenkins spoke of the house.

  “Lochlaven has only been moderately restored, for the convenience of the family, of course. We’ve added a small gatehouse to the rear of the property for a boiler. There is hot water available in all the bathing chambers,” she said proudly. “However, we are too remote for some conveniences.” She glanced at Emma. “We do not have gas lighting but I doubt you’ll notice the difference. Our maids are very industrious in cleaning the oil lamps and trimming the wicks.”

  “I’m sure,” Emma said, wondering what she was expected to say. She’d never been involved in the day-to-day operation of Chavensworth, and her uncle had taken over her home in London. Prior to that, she’d been a young girl living in her father’s household.

  “His Lordship does not like the ringing of bells,” the housekeeper continued. “Therefore, you shall have to judge your own lateness by the clock in your chamber. We do not, of course, have a clock in the sickroom.”

  “You have a chamber set aside as a sickroom?” Emma asked, surprised. Normally, when a family member became ill, his bedroom was stripped and prepared for the duration of the illness.

  “A modification of His Lordship’s,” the housekeeper said, halting before a long table in a wide hallway. “If anyone at Lochlaven becomes ill, he is sent here immediately and treated by Dr. Carrick, if he’s available. If not, the earl has had several girls trained in London to care for the ill.” She turned to Emma. “I do not want you to think that we have a great deal of illness at Lochlaven, for such is not the case. We are probably one of the healthiest places in all of Scotland because of the earl’s measures.”

  “Then I am most fortunate to have come,” Emma said. “I’m afraid Bryce is very ill.”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked as if she would say something, then restrained herself. She merely pursed her lips and moved to the table. On it was a pitcher of water, a basin, and a clear glass jar containing a bluish liquid.

  “One of the measures the earl has instituted,” she said. “You must not enter the sickroom until you’ve washed your hands in this solution.”

  “What is it?”

  Mrs. Jenkins glanced at her impatiently but then must have realized that Emma was a guest, and not one of the servant girls she commanded. Her expression smoothed somewhat, and she answered. “It is His Lordship’s recipe,” she said. “He believes that washing the hands will limit the spread of illness.”

  “Has it?”

  “We have not had any outbreaks of cholera at Lochlaven,” she said. “And most of our people are remarkably healthy.”

  Juliana’s question in the carriage came back to her. What if Bryce’s illness was contagious? What if she’d brought disease to Lochlaven?

  “We are also privileged to have a physician staying here,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “Dr. Carrick, whom I mentioned before, is a friend of His Lordship’s, and assists him in his discoveries. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and fetch him now.”

  Emma turned to the housekeeper. “What should I do, Mrs. Jenkins?”

  Mrs. Jenkins had already turned and was walking down the corridor. At her question, she glanced over her shoulder at Emma.

  “I would go to your husband’s side.”

  Implicit in that comment was a criticism. A well-deserved one, at that. A truly devoted wife would not have asked what she should do but would simply have accompanied Bryce.

  She was not proving to be devoted at all.

  Emma washed her hands in the blue solution, dried them, and entered the sickroom.

  The carriage was traveling downhill, a landmark of sorts, for the approach to Lochlaven. There was the loch, a sheet of pewter stretching to the edge of the horizon, and beyond, the house itself, perched above the loch at the end of a promontory of densely wooded pines.

  Lochlaven. His home, inheritance, responsibility, and haven, it seemed to wait impatiently for his return. He found himself leaning forward, as if to urge the carriage onward.

  A strange vehicle sat in the drive, forcing his driver to park behind it. Had Albert purchased a new carriage?

  He entered his home to find a young woman sitting on the bench in the foyer. At his entrance, she stood, but before he could address her, he heard Albert barking orders.

  Curious, he followed the voices down the corridor. Two footmen left the sickroom and halted at the sight of him, before one of them called to the house
keeper.

  Two women emerged from the room, one of them his housekeeper, Mrs. Jenkins.

  Ian knew, before he turned his head. He knew, in some deep part of him that allowed for hideous coincidences and absurd shocks, who the other woman would be. There she was, standing in an errant ray of sunshine streaming in through the sickroom window. Black as a crow, swathed in ebony from the wilted brim of her bonnet to the toes of her shoes peeking out from beneath her full skirts. Even the shawl around her shoulders and held at her waist with her wrists was black.

  She looked as if she might cry.

  The hidden part of him jumped up and ran to her like he was a small boy. Inside, the child he was twirled her around joyously, yelling at the top of his lungs, You’re here! You’re here!

  Emma. Dear God, it was Emma.

  She looked up at him in that next moment, her eyes solemn, her mouth unsmiling. A perfect face, one that was rendered beautiful not by its expression but simply by nature. Yet he’d seen her smile, and it had given life to the sculpture. He wanted her to smile right at this moment, at the most inopportune time. He wanted to jostle her into laughter, ease the misery on her face.

  He wanted to apologize to her, and he wasn’t certain for what. The fact that she was here, and he was acting the fool? The fact that he couldn’t stop staring at her? Or the fact that he was no doubt causing consternation not only to her but to everyone who witnessed his behavior?

  Instead of a greeting, he came to stand directly in front of her, as if blocking her passage.

  Several people spoke to him but he ignored all of them.

  Slowly, he reached out his hand and touched her cheek with his fingertips, as if to ensure himself that she was real.

  “You’re here,” he said, in a voice that sounded as if he’d just awakened.

  “Your Lordship, it’s Mr. Bryce. He’s very ill,” Mrs. Jenkins said at his side.

  He glanced at his housekeeper.

  “Bryce?” he said.

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded.

  He looked back at Emma. “You’ve married Bryce,” he said. “You’re his heiress.”