Claimed by the Laird. Nicola Cornick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ cast a covert glance around the taproom. It was almost full. Three men were playing cribbage in the opposite corner, leaning over the board, wrapped up in the game. No one was watching him—or so it appeared. But word would go around about the smooth fellow from Edinburgh who had come for a job at the castle and had accidentally fallen foul of the local smuggling gang. Small communities like this one were close and loyal. Everyone would know about the whisky distilling.

      The landlord pushed a glass toward him across the table. It tasted of smoke and peat, almost strong enough to choke him. Lucas could see the gleam of amusement in the man’s eyes. Perhaps he thought him a Sassenach, an English foreigner who could not hold his drink. Or perhaps his accent tagged him as a Lowlander. There was no love lost between the Highlanders and their compatriots to the south. Truth was he was a fusion of races and a mixture of languages. His mother had been an educated woman who had taught him to speak both French and English faultlessly. When he had been thrown out of his stepfather’s palace and come to Scotland looking for his inheritance, he had quickly adopted the accent of the streets so that he did not stand out. When he had started to profit in business and made his first fortune, he had shed the streets and readopted the faultless English of his childhood.

      He sat quietly, thinking, whilst the noise of the taproom washed over him. The taste of the whisky was mellowing on his tongue and he felt a pleasant lethargy start to slide through him. Contrary to his previous experience, the whisky tasted delicious, warm and deep, once he had got used to the fact that it was strong enough to take the top of his head off. The Kilmory distiller was clearly very talented.

      He leaned an elbow on the table, staring into the deep golden liquid. It swirled like magic, like a witch’s spell. This was the whisky’s skill, he thought; it could make you forget, ease you away from all kinds of raw memories and soothe the pain of the past. But tonight, here in Kilmory, he felt the shadow of the past standing right at his shoulder. It was here that Peter had died. He had stayed with his friends in this very inn, had dined at the castle and had walked on the same cliffs.

      Lucas thought about the whisky-smuggling gang. He had heard the men deny any involvement in Peter’s death, but he did not believe the word of a bunch of criminal thugs. They would have dispatched him swiftly enough had the lady not saved his life, and it was the obvious explanation.

      Still, he knew the key to discovering the truth was finding the woman he had met tonight. He would never be able to identify the individual members of the gang, but she was a different matter. He could find her and she would lead him to the others. He could then betray them to Sidmouth.

      He thought about what he had learned of her. He thought of her touch, of the rich, sensual rub of her velvet cloak and the scent of her perfume. He thought of her kiss, of the heat and the sweetness of it and the blinding sense of recognition he had felt. The memory of it still disturbed him. If he were a fanciful man, he would have called it love at first sight.

      He was not a fanciful man.

      It had been lust.

      The other stuff, the sense of intimacy, of understanding, was no more than a trick of the senses. He had been fighting for his life and she had helped him. It had been relief and gratitude that had touched him, nothing more.

      It seemed that “the lady” was precisely that, an aristocrat. She had spoken with an aristocrat’s confidence and authority. Lucas had heard one of the men address her as “my lady” before he had quickly corrected himself. There were not many ladies to the square mile around here. Inescapable logic suggested that she must be related to the Duke of Forres and be a resident at Kilmory Castle.

      The landlord brought him his supper at last, a plate of fragrant mutton pie with steaming vegetables, which Lucas fell upon with all the enthusiasm of a man who had just cheated death. As he ate, Lucas thought about what Jack had told him about the duke’s female relatives. There was Lady Semple, the wife of the duke’s heir. It seemed unlikely that she would be involved with a gang of outlaws but perhaps her daughter might be. He needed to find out more about Lady Allegra. Then there was Lady Christina MacMorlan, the self-effacing spinster who kept house for her father and was eclipsed by her two beautiful younger siblings. The thought of her as the pistol-wielding leader of a band of outlaws was mind-boggling.

      On the other hand, there was no better cover for the pistol-wielding leader of a band of outlaws than being the self-effacing daughter of a duke.

      But he was getting ahead of himself. There might be other possibilities. The first thing he needed to do was obtain the job at the castle. His lady smuggler had told him to go back to Edinburgh, but he had absolutely no intention of doing so. Tomorrow he would present himself at Kilmory Castle as a candidate for the post of footman as though nothing had happened. It would be a test of his acting abilities. He was not good at taking orders, so it would also be a test of his tolerance. He loathed the aristocracy with their opulent lifestyle and their sense of entitlement. A position of servitude in a ducal house was the worst possible match for him.

      He smiled faintly. It was a small price to pay to find out the truth about his brother. If it also meant that he found his lady smuggler as well, then so much the better. He knew that he would recognize her again. One touch, a hint of her fragrance, would be sufficient.

      If she really was the duke’s daughter, then he had no sympathy for her. Either she was a spoiled little rich girl playing at being a smuggler for some excitement, or she was a cunning, deceitful criminal. Or perhaps she was both. Lucas did not really care about her motives. He could remember what it felt like to steal food in order to survive, to beg and thieve and fight simply to stay alive. He had no time for those who had every privilege and still behaved like delinquents.

      In the privacy of his chamber, a tiny little box of a room tucked under the inn’s eaves where he was too tall to stand upright beneath the sloping ceiling, he finally took out the pistol and examined it. It was a fine piece of workmanship, expensive, made entirely of brass and beautifully engraved. Lucas suspected it had been made in the late eighteenth century and that it would not look out of place in an aristocrat’s collection. He tucked it away at the bottom of his bag, then lay down to sleep. The inn was noisy, but he could sleep anywhere, another legacy of the years he had spent on the streets, seizing rest when and where he could, always half-awake to trouble. Tonight, though, he found it more difficult than usual. He thought he might be haunted by memories of Peter, but instead he slept in snatches of dreams, and always through them there was a woman running away, a woman he yearned for, a woman whose face he could not see.

       CHAPTER TWO

      CHRISTINA PUSHED OPEN the wooden picket gate that separated the grounds of Kilmory Castle from the road beyond. A path in the shadow of the high estate wall led past the neat row of gardeners’ cottages, shadowed by a tall stand of pines whose fallen needles were soft beneath her shoes. On the other side of the pines, a vast expanse of lawn, dotted with cedars, bordered the rose garden and led to a flight of steps up to the terrace. Christina walked slowly, unhurriedly. She had told her family that she was taking a stroll after dinner, and though she had been gone some time, they would not suspect anything. They never did.

      Light glowed softly behind the castle windows. She did not particularly want to go back inside. She loved being out at night when the moon was high and the wind blew in the sea fret. She loved it more, perhaps, because ladies were not supposed to wander around alone after dark. She loved doing the unexpected because her days were governed by the expected.

      Lucas Ross had been unexpected. She could still taste his kiss. She could still feel the touch of his hands on her body. His scent clung to her, not the cloying pomade and cologne some men wore, but a mixture СКАЧАТЬ