Forgetting the Scot (Highlanders of Balforss) Page 9

  “Wait.” Dominic removed the spectacles from his face and handed them to Virginia with both hands.

  “I can’t—”

  “Please. You try Dominic’s eyes, yes?”

  Virginia hooked the delicate silver temples behind her ears and looked up. She gasped and turned a smile up to Magnus that would have broken his heart had it not already burst with happiness for her.

  “There you are,” she said.

  “They work?”

  “Yes.”

  Victory! He scooped her into his arms and spun around, savoring every shriek and squeal. He’d forgotten himself, but he didn’t bloody care. He’d done it. He’d found her spectacles.

  “Ha! Put me down so I can look at you.”

  He’d made her breathless. He liked that. He set her down and held her until she regained her balance. “What do you see?”

  “You. You look just like your voice.”

  “And how is that?”

  She stepped back and took the length of him in. “Strong. Kind. Gentle.” She tilted her head to one side. “And a little rakish.”

  “Rakish?”

  “Yes. Handsome in a devilish sort of way.”

  “But you approve?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Would your wife like to buy?” the Romany asked.

  He turned to the man, startled by his assumption. He would have corrected his mistake had Virginia not said, “Yes, thank you.” She turned her smile up to him again. “That is, if you approve, husband.”

  “Of course. Anything my wife wants.”

  “Happy wife, happy life. Yes?” Dominic bounced his eyebrows as if they shared a private joke.

  Ah yes. This is why men marry. To feel this. This pride, this joy, this unassailable feeling of success. This is my wife. Mine. She chose me.

  Virginia handed Dominic every coin in her purse apologizing that she didn’t have more, as she felt terrible leaving the man at a disadvantage.

  Dominic assured her she had given him the correct amount. Feeling expansive, he handed the Romany another florin when Virginia wasn’t looking.

  They had already turned to leave, when the woman inside the caravan called out, “Irina reads your fortune now, yes?”

  “Och, nae thanks.” He continued walking.

  Virginia tugged his sleeve. “Do let her read your fortune. She might have some welcome news for you.”

  He supposed today was a lucky day for him. What would be the harm? And in any case, he couldn’t refuse Virginia anything.

  “Sure. Why not?” He took another shilling from his pocket and reached toward the woman. She grabbed him by the wrist, and yanked. The woman had a surprisingly strong grip. A wave of unease rippled up his back.

  The black-haired woman’s eyes were an unnatural yellow color, like a cat’s. She scraped the coin from his hand with long fingernails, never releasing his wrist, and dropped the coin down the front of her bodice.

  “Viscountess,” he said, turning to search for her. She was right behind him.

  “Yes?”

  “Move to where I can see you.”

  Virginia stood close to his side and he relaxed. But only slightly.

  Irina twisted his wrist so that his palm faced up. She clawed open his fist, then leaned over and spit into his palm. He recoiled in disgust. She smeared the spit around with a finger and made low humming sounds. It was everything he could do not to jerk his hand away and wipe it on his trousers.

  “You have cheated death often,” she said.

  Of course, he had. He’d survived battles, recovered from countless wounds, big and small. He’d taken shocking risks. Anyone could have guessed as much.

  She cocked her head from side to side, looking like she couldn’t believe what she saw. “Why do you hunt on another man’s turf?”

  “I thought you knew all the answers,” he said.

  Her yellow eyes flashed him an angry look. He shrugged.

  “You love a woman who is not your wife.” The Romany woman cast a challenging look at Virginia.

  He’d had enough. He jerked his hand free and slapped another coin down on the ledge.

  As he led Virginia away, he heard the woman call out, “The Englishman will kill you.”

  Her words seared the back of his neck. Jesus. First his own bloody nightmare. Then Declan lying to him about his dreams. Now this terrible woman and her prophecy.

  “What does she mean?” Virginia asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, unable to disguise his anger. “She’s talking havers.”

  Damn. This is what he got for indulging Virginia. Omens of doom. Bloody frigging hell. This is what he got for touching when he should have kept his hands to himself. When would he learn?

  …

  Charlotte and Virginia enjoyed an easy afternoon with Morag. Perhaps it was due to her clear eyesight now that she had spectacles, but Morag looked different somehow. She seemed to have recovered completely from their ordeal. In fact, she had more than recovered. Morag had grown another inch taller and another year older. She carried herself with confidence.

  Virginia silently thanked God for the Sinclair men. If not for their bravery, for their fierce determination, and for their love of a young Cornish woman named Caya Pendarvis, all five women held captive by Captain O’Malley would have suffered a hellish fate in the West Indies. Instead, Caya and Declan Sinclair were happily married, Morag was returned to her loving family, and Mary’s brother had come to bring her back to his home in Edinburgh. Virginia only hoped that she and Charlotte would have happy endings, as well.

  Lost in thought, Virginia returned to the conversation when she heard her name mentioned.

  “Believe it or not, our Virginia is married to the Viscount of Langley,” Charlotte said.

  “A viscount.” Morag gasped. “Why, that means yer a viscountess.”

  “Yes,” Virginia said.

  “Wait ’til I tell Mr. Campbell. That’ll be a story, aye?”

  Virginia set her teacup down carefully. She’d heard the name earlier that day. “Mr. William Campbell?”

  “Aye. He’s coming to the house to talk to me. Says he’s writing a story about my adventure.” Morag inflated with importance. “Imagine when I tell him I spent the whole time aboard the Tigress with a viscountess.”

  They stayed until the shadows grew long. At last, Virginia and Charlotte said their final goodbyes to Morag, and together with Flora they met Magnus outside the Sinkler home, and he escorted them back to the Crown Tavern. They washed, had a short rest, and went down for supper. She tried and failed to engage in conversation at the table, but Virginia had become so troubled by Morag’s talk of Mr. Campbell and his news story, she’d lost her appetite.

  “Virginia, dear, are you well?” Flora asked. “Your supper’s gone cold.”

  She snapped out of her stupor. “Sorry. I’m…well, I’m just so pleased with my new spectacles I can’t stop looking at everything.”

  Magnus rose and scooped her bowl from the table. “I’ll get you another.” He disappeared into the tavern crowd before she could object. Ever since the Romany woman’s reading, he’d become sullen and tight-lipped Magnus the Ogre again.

  Flora and Charlotte had finished their meals. “Please, you needn’t wait for me. It’s been a long day and you must be exhausted. Go on to bed. Magnus will sit with me while I finish.”

  “All right, but don’t be long, a nighean.”

  Once Charlotte and Flora excused themselves, her mind returned to the same troublesome subject. Surely the fanciful scribblings of a backwater newsman wouldn’t make it any farther than Inverness. And even then, it would take weeks and weeks. She shouldn’t be concerned.

  Magnus returned with a steaming bowl of stew and set it on the table. Instead of taking the seat next to her, he sat across from her.

  “What’s wrong? You were fine when I left you at Morag’s house. What happened there to upset you—and dinnae tell me the nonsense about your spectacles.”r />
  Virginia felt the heat of a blush forming on her cheeks. “It’s not nonsense. I love my new…eye baubles.” She attempted a teasing smile. It did not work on Magnus. She changed tack. “There’s no reason to concern yourself—”

  “There is every reason. You are my responsibility.”

  “I assure you, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need you to look after me.”

  “You’ve needed me since the first day you fell into my arms. There’s no point arguing. You are under my protection, and as your protector, I need to know what happened at the Sinkler home to upset you.”

  Virginia felt her ladylike blush deepen to an unladylike red. She had no idea the man was capable of ferreting out the truth so easily. “Very well,” she said, surrendering. “Do you remember the man in the market, Mr. Campbell?” Magnus nodded. “He’s going to write a story about Morag, and she’s going to tell him…about me.”

  “And that frightens you why?”

  “I told you—”

  “Yes, yes, you told me you didnae like newspaper men. But what do you think will happen if he mentions your name in the story?”

  Drat. Why did he have to be so damn clever? “It’s a matter of privacy, I suppose.”

  “Viscountess, does your dislike of newsmen have anything to do with your reluctance to return to England?”

  Virginia looked away, unable to speak. Some strong emotion had her by the throat. She knew what was coming next.

  “More to the point,” he said, “why have you not written to your husband?”

  Would he make her say it out loud? Here, in the middle of a crowded tavern with strangers, all around.

  “Please don’t.” She gulped and prepared herself for the mortifying possibility of tears.

  …

  Bloody hell. He’d let his temper get away from him and mangled the situation like some ham-fisted idiot. When he offered her a relatively clean handkerchief from his pocket, she flashed him a trembling smile of gratitude and dabbed at her tears.

  “Lass. I want to help you, but I need to know what the problem is.”

  She took a deep breath. “I can return to England, but I can never return to Society. I’m ruined. And not just me. My husband will be an outcast as well. Society would have sympathy for a bereaved husband whose wife had disappeared and was presumed dead, but a man whose wife returns after having been used by criminals for three months would prove too uncomfortable for the Ton to endure.”

  The divot in his chest ached watching her struggle to speak the words, but he kept still and listened.

  “It would cost him financially and otherwise,” she continued. “I would be doing him no favors by reappearing like Lazarus.”

  “But no one touched you.”

  “That’s not something I can prove. Nor is it something anyone will believe.”

  He clenched his fists on the table, reminding himself not to touch. All he wanted to do was hold her, comfort her, assure her that he would make everything right. But how could he? She was married. “Surely, your husband would believe you.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  The hair on the back of his neck bristled with mounting anger. “Are you telling me your husband would reject you rather than suffer…” He paused, cleared his throat, and ground out, “…social discomfort?” What kind of unholy arse was she married to?

  “You don’t understand what it’s like there.”

  “Nae. I dinnae. Nor do I want to know. England is a wretched place.”

  “It’s just the way things are. No better or worse than anywhere else, I imagine.”

  “Nae. That damned Society you English covet is anything but civil. They’re nothing but a pack of jackals. If any one of you stumbles, shows the slightest weakness, the rest circle in for the kill. Nae, I want nothing of that lot, nor should you. If you were mine—” He swallowed hard, dipped his head, and looked away. He had to get control of himself. When he turned back, the red tide of his rage had started to recede. “I would travel to hell and back to retrieve my wife.”

  Virginia closed her eyes. “I believe you.”

  The sadness in her voice—the resignation, the hopelessness—it cut him as cleanly as a knife. It seemed he’d rescued her from one hell only to deliver her to another. Damn her bloody husband. Could he really be that heartless as to blame Virginia for her abduction?

  “If it was anyone’s fault,” he said, “it would be your husband’s. After all, he is responsible for your safety. He’s the one who should receive the scorn of his peers.”

  He had to fix this for her. She was a bloody viscountess. She had a right to her title and all the respect due her. He couldn’t allow her to hide away in Scotland, to sacrifice her reputation for her husband’s, her happiness for her husband’s. He had a sudden thought, one that reached inside his chest, grabbed his heart, and squeezed it hard.

  “Do you love him?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes, surprised by his question. “What?”

  Christ, it had taken all his courage to ask the question once. Did she mean to make him do it again? “Do you love the viscount so much that you would forego your title, your family, friends, everything that was your life in England just to spare him the scandal?” She continued to stare at him without answering.

  From the time Magnus had found out that she was married until now, he’d successfully convinced himself that Virginia didn’t love the viscount, that hers was a marriage of convenience only. After all, how could she love a prat, whatever that was? Had he been mistaken? Had his desire for her warped his judgment so much?

  “Mr. Magnus, you mistake me. I am the daughter of a social-climbing merchant.” Her words had sharp edges to them, a Virginia he’d never heard before. “My father used his wealth to purchase my title by arranging my marriage to Lord Langley—a cold, cruel, unfeeling man, who probably was quite relieved when I went missing. I imagine his only regret is that I didn’t turn up dead, because now he must wait two years before he can divorce his deceased wife and remarry.”

  Her revelation left him reeling. How could people of rank and privilege misuse her so?

  “My father died this past winter. I have no family, save one disapproving spinster aunt. And I have no friends among the viper pit that is London Society. Referring to the Ton as jackals is too good for them. The Bon Ton are snakes.” Tears threatened. She sniffed them back angrily. He motioned for her to stop, but she shook her head in warning. Now that she had started, she was determined to finish. “My husband has control of all my property, all my inherited wealth. If I could, I would never return. Never.” She took a deep breath and calmed herself. “But I have unfinished business there. You see, I had a trust, a sizeable sum my father had left me for my personal use, a good portion of which I had promised to Mrs. Pennyweather. She and I were to build a home for foundlings. It is my personal mission to save motherless children. But Langley stole my money. I want it back so that I may fulfill my purpose. That is my reason for returning. My only reason for returning to London.”

  Magnus had rarely been stunned into silence, but he could think of no words to say. This woman of title, wealth, and privilege, unloved, sold by her father for his personal gain, then taken by a pirate to be sold again—this beautiful, soft-spoken, near-sighted, gentle lady would give her fortune away to save orphaned children.

  “Who the devil is Mrs. Pennyweather?”

  This time his question surprised her into laughter. He joined her, happy that the dark upsetting tale was behind them. Virginia collected herself, and as the hour grew late and the custom in the tavern thinned, she told him all about the plans she and Mrs. Pennyweather had for their home for foundling children. She was daft to give away her money, but her generosity didn’t surprise him. Common sense told him he should disabuse her of the idea, but it was obviously important to her. It was, as she put it, her mission. And who was he to convince her otherwise. Instead, he listened and admired her passion, her k
nowledge, and her determination. As she spoke, he came to realize there was only one way to fix things for her, and it would probably kill him to do it.

  …

  They returned to Balforss the next afternoon. Excited to see Lucy again, Virginia joined her in Flora’s parlor for a chat before dinner.

  “You found spectacles.” Lucy clapped her hands. “Let me look at you.” She cocked her head side-to-side as if assessing.

  Virginia grew uncomfortable under Lucy’s scrutiny. “They fail to improve my looks, but they definitely make you look more beautiful.”

  “Pish posh. They aren’t so bad. They make you look scholarly.”

  “A regular bluestocking.” She shook her head with amusement. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She announced Lucy’s sugary bounty with each item she pulled from her satchel. “A bag of licorice bits, four cherry lollies, and a one-pound box of comfits, all pink.”

  Lucy swooned louder with each revelation. “Thank you.” She unwrapped a pink sweetie and popped it in her mouth. “Yum.”

  She chuckled, enjoying her friend’s candy rapture, and shook off Lucy’s offer of a treat. “I’ve never known anyone who worships sweets like you.”

  Darling Jemma, who’d been trying to stuff a wooden block the size of an apple into her mouth, dropped it and used a chair to pull herself up. She toddled across the carpet like a drunken sailor, caught herself on Lucy’s knee, and reached up. “Ummy-ummy-ummy.” A line of drool streamed from her mouth to the growing wet spot on Lucy’s muslin skirt.

  Lucy gave her daughter a critical look. “Do you think she’s trying to say yummy or mummy?”

  “Sounds like mummy,” Virginia said, being charitable.

  Hercules trotted over and stuck his nose up the back of Jemma’s gown causing her to fall on her bottom with a shriek.

  Lucy popped another comfit in her mouth and inhaled deeply through her nose. “Here.” Resolute, she handed all the sweeties back. “Take these and hide them from me. Allow me only two a day.”

  Virginia stuffed the packages in her satchel. “As you wish.”

  “I’m so glad you found spectacles.”

  She adjusted them on her nose with her index finger, a self-conscious move she should stop. “Magnus found them, actually.” At her mention of Magnus, Lucy’s left eyebrow arched high on her forehead. Now that she had her spectacles, she could see the detailed expressions on Lucy’s animated face. Her friend was, as always, breathtakingly beautiful.