“Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world—where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defense,
To say I have done no harm?”
LADY MACDUFF, MACBETH ACT IV, SCENE II
Coll looked down into Temperance Hartwood’s pretty blue eyes, their bodies still intertwined, his heart still pounding, and his mind still very far from logical thinking. “Pleased to make yer acquaintance, my lady.”
Temperance Hartwood. He’d heard the name somewhere, and recently. Where the devil had it been? After weeks of speaking to lasses who knew how to discuss the weather, fashion, and the most innocent bits of gossip, he had so many pieces of information battering about in his brain that he could scarcely remember his own name.
With a short laugh that sounded bitter at the end, she put one hand over her eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you. I’ve managed for years to keep it to myself, and then you look at me with those … eyes of yours, and I begin blabbing like a baby.”
“These eyes of mine happen to like lookin’ at ye,” he returned, shifting off of her to turn on his back beside her. The lass needed some room to think; as a man with an appreciation for open spaces, he understood that. “And I’m nae a fool. I told ye that ye could trust me.”
“Yes, I know that, but I’ve done this on my own until now. I’ve been rather proud of that fact, actually.”
With her name still rolling about in his brain, he abruptly remembered where he’d heard it spoken. “My sister mentioned ye the other day,” he said slowly, attempting to piece together what had been a rather silly and inane conversation, a complaint about his harsh treatment of Matthew Harris’s beak. “Ye’re an heiress. There’s a wager in the book at White’s over whether ye’re deceased, or ye’ve run off to America, or ye’re somewhere in the countryside and wed to a butcher with a half dozen pudgy bairns.”
“I’ve heard that one myself,” she commented, her expression easing a little. “It’s rather flattering that no one has come close to guessing what I’ve actually done with my life.”
“Aye, but someone has, I reckon.” Bending an arm behind his head, he reached out with the other one to tug her up over his chest. “Are ye certain it’s nae the man ye ran from? Mayhap he saw ye at the theater and recognized ye. Some men would rather murder than be revealed to be a fool.”
Persephone—Temperance—lay her cheek over his heart, her fingers idly stroking his chest. “I’m still trying to decide whether I’d rather flee than find out who it might be,” she muttered.
“How many people want ye dead, lass?”
Snorting, she lifted her head briefly to look at him. “It’s not funny, truly, but at the same time it’s just so horrid that I’d rather laugh than cry.”
“I’m all for lying here with ye all night and giving ye all the comfort I can manage,” he responded, twining a mid-length, honey-colored strand of her hair around his finger, “but ye ken I’m a fighter. Give me names—point me at someone I can battle.”
What he didn’t say was that he wasn’t going to allow her to leave London. He wanted her there, with him. Not just to protect her, though that made for a damned fine excuse. He simply wasn’t prepared to part from her. This connection between them felt stronger than iron, but at the same time, as delicate as a butterfly’s wings. No, she wasn’t going anywhere. Not until … Well, just not.
The thing that he’d begun to pull out of this conversation, beyond the way it confirmed what he already knew—that she was a brave, bright, independent woman—was that while his mother might have made a sliver of sense in not wanting him to wed a commoner, at least for the sake of his sister and new sisters-in-law, Temperance Hartwood wasn’t a commoner. She even had “Lady” in front of her name, for the devil’s sake.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” she muttered, half to herself. “My parents would say I did, and I suppose I’ve shirked my obligation to improve the family lineage by marrying into an impressive title, but I’ve spent eight years away, six of them here in one small part of London, simply living my life.”
“Ye protected yerself,” he stated, whether her question had been rhetorical or not. “And ye’ve done well at it all. If disappointing a parent were grounds for murder, there’d be a lot fewer children in the world, I reckon. So right or wrong, ye dunnae deserve having someone trying to hurt ye.”
“Of course you’d say that; you make sense, Coll. You approve of anyone who stands on their own two feet.”
“Nae only do I make sense, lass, I’ve an affinity for sorting out things that dunnae make sense.” Coaxing information out of her would likely give him an apoplexy before he’d managed it, but clearly fists didn’t apply here. He needed to be someone she could trust and prove to her that her secrets were safe with him.
But there was also someone after her. He didn’t have all the time in the world to be patient—not that he’d ever much favored patience.
“I don’t want you entangled in this. I just … I wish we could go back to the night we first met, and just leave things as they were then.” She kissed his nipple, nearly sending his eyes rolling back in his head.
“I already knew what I wanted, the first time I set eyes on ye. And I mean to help ye, Temperance. If ye fear that obligates ye to me, it doesnae. I like ye, and I dunnae want ye hurt. There arenae enough people I truly like in the world, and I’m nae willing to lose one of them. So ye tell me who ye reckon is after ye.”
“Coll, th—”
“Nae,” he interrupted. “Tell me.”
She lay there with her cheek on his chest, one arm across his shoulder and the other tucked into his side, for so long that he began to worry he’d finally found someone more stubborn than he was. Finally, though, she sighed. “I’m not certain. I don’t have any reason to think my parents would want me harmed; as far as I know, they haven’t even disowned me.” Temperance snorted. “Disowning me would ruin any value I would have to the family, and they made quite the investment in my education. I’m very nearly a prodigy at the pianoforte, don’t you know.”
“I believe that,” he said, admiring the fact that she could jest even with all the weight on her shoulders. “Who are they, though? If ye’ll recall, I’m nae from England.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t read about my disappearance up in Scotland, even. My parents are Michael and Georgiana Hartwood, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bayton. Bayton Hall is in the middle of Cumbria.”
“Cumbria. That’s the Lake District, aye? Wild country.” He frowned. “Wild for England, that is.”
“Yes, it is. Bayton Hall overlooks Lake Windermere. It’s quite lovely. Or it was, the last time I saw it.”
“Yer da’s a marquis, and that’s still nae enough for them? Who’d they want ye to wed, Prince George himself?”
“If they thought they could manage that, I’m certain they would have. Prinny was no doubt on their list, at least. No, the man they found for me was Martin Vance, the Duke of Dunhurst.”
Coll propped up his head on one arm to look at her. “Tall man, bald but for two white tufts of hair over his ears? Looks like a walking scarecrow with nae enough skin pulled over his skull?”
He felt her shiver against him. “Yes, that’s him. You’ve met, I take it?”
“I dunnae recall that we’ve been introduced, but I’ve seen him about with his two granddaughters.”
“One granddaughter. Maria Vance-Hayden. She came out this year. The other one is his wife, Penelope Vance, the Duchess of Dunhurst. She came out two years after I did.”
Dunhurst had to be seventy years old, at the least. The idea of that severe, harsh man wed to the lively, bold lass presently in his arms—and that her parents had welcomed the match—left Coll feeling pinched and ill. It had been bad enough when Amelia-Rose Baxter’s mother and Francesca had conspired to have her engaged to him before they’d ever met, but they’d at least been born in the same decade.
“As I recall,” he said aloud, grasping for memories for which he hadn’t had much use over the years, “my mother kept her maiden name when she married my da because it was her family who had the money. Da wouldnae wear Oswell at all and went to hurling things at the walls if Francesca ever referred to his bairns as Oswell-MacTaggerts, but letting her keep it was part of the agreement for allowing the marriage.”
She nodded. “Yes. Maria Vance-Hayden has a wealthy mother, who married Dunhurst’s hideous son Donald for his title. That’s why Dunhurst wanted me; the Hartwoods—my parents—are quite well-to-do.”
It was quite a round of names to sort out, but most of them wouldn’t have a reason to want any harm to come to Temperance Hartwood. Perhaps some scandal and ruination, but not a broken neck. “I’ll be making Dunhurst’s acquaintance, then,” he said, “and we’ll see what sort of man he is.”
“Other than the cruel, cold sort,” she returned. “In my experience, vengeance takes effort and patience. He wasn’t proficient at either one.”
“Were ye engaged, or was it an understanding?”
“I fled a week before the wedding,” she said, scowling. “I shouldn’t have waited that long, but I kept hoping … I don’t know, that something would happen to intervene.”
“Then if he came to the Saint Genesius and saw ye onstage, he might reckon killing ye would be better than ye being discovered. A lass who became an actress to avoid marrying him—that would be damned embarrassing.”
“I was wearing trousers and a black wig. Aside from that, Dunhurst spent all of his time in my company scrutinizing my bosom. I doubt he knows what color my eyes are.”
“Blue, lass,” Coll said, lowering his head onto his crooked arm again. “Blue as Loch an Daimh at noon beneath a cloudless sky.”
Silence. “For a man who claims to prefer speaking with his fists,” she said very quietly, “you do have a way with words.”
“Ye should see me fling a tree trunk about.”
He felt her body shake with a silent laugh, and he grinned at the ceiling. In the short time he’d known her, he’d probably said more words to her than he had to every other female in London combined. She’d taxed his wits but not his patience, because she was harder to keep up with than a fox on marshy ground.
“Have yer parents been to London since ye’ve been at the Saint Genesius?”
“I’m certain they have been. Neither of them ever particularly enjoyed the theater, though. There are fewer people to impress with their wealth in the dark.” She hesitated. “I never saw them, if they did make an appearance.”
“Are they in London now?”
Her spine stiffened beneath his palm. “You are not going to call on my parents, Coll MacTaggert.”
“I didnae say I was. I asked if they were here. Ye seem fairly aware of all of Society’s to-dos, so I expect ye know one way or the other. If ye dunnae, I can find out easily enough. My màthair practically keeps a list.”
“No,” she snapped, slapping him on the chest. “No one else can know about me.”
“I’m nae going to tell her anything,” he protested, her body shifting against his making him stir again.
“You are not a subtle man, Lord Glendarril.”
“Ye’d be surprised, lass. I generally dunnae have cause to be subtle.” Shifting his arm from behind his head, he lifted her squarely on top of him. “For instance, do ye notice anything about me now?”
The smile that curved her mouth very nearly stopped his heart. “Well, now that you mention it,” she murmured, lifting up on all fours and sliding down the length of him.
Perhaps she meant to distract him from asking questions. She’d spent over seven years keeping her secrets to herself, after all. As her mouth closed over his cock, Coll decided that questions could wait until tomorrow. He had a lass to pleasure and a future to consider. One that included her, whether she’d realized it or not.
Coll awoke in the morning to a black cat sitting squarely on his chest and staring at him. “I ken who ye are, Hades,” he muttered, staring right back at the wee animal. “And ye ken that I’m nae going anywhere. I reckon we’d best ally ourselves if we mean to save our lass.”
The cat lifted one paw, flexed it to show his claws, then set it down again.
“Well-played,” Coll commented, ignoring the light pricks. The cat could’ve done a great deal more damage if he had wanted to. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
With a sniff, Hades stood up and padded off the bed. Coll watched him glide across the room and disappear beneath the oak wardrobe. Then he turned to find Pers—Temperance—watching him from the dressing table, a pink and yellow silk dressing robe over her shoulders and knotted at the waist.
“Impressive,” she said with a smile, “considering you don’t smell like fish at all.”
Sitting up, he stretched his arms over his head. “Did Hades eat all the sandwiches? I’m half starved.”
“I’ve already asked Flora to make us something for breakfast.” She tilted her head, still gazing at him. “I expected—well, more of a reaction to you finding out my identity. It’s horribly scandalous, after all, for a marquis’s only daughter to become an actress.”
His main reaction had been the realization that he’d previously bedded her without knowing who she was, not that he’d now spent the night in the naked company of a marquis’s daughter. That generally meant a marriage was in the offing, even in the Highlands. This was all a wee bit more complicated than he’d planned for, but it had also become a great deal more interesting than he’d expected.
If he knew one thing, though, it was that pointing out that he’d ruined a lady and now had an obligation to marry her wouldn’t go over well. She’d run away rather than be forced into a match she didn’t favor, and he wasn’t about to attempt to force her into anything now.
“Ye’re a fine actress. It’d be another thing altogether, I suppose, if ye didnae have any talent for it.” He climbed out of the soft bed, looking for his kilt before remembering he’d been wearing Sassenach trousers. “I dunnae scandalize easily, Temperance, if ye’ve nae noticed. I’m more troubled that we cannae narrow down who might be trying to harm ye.”
“I don’t want to leave, you know,” she said, gesturing at the portmanteau they’d knocked to the floor last night. “I like my life here. I like the … friends I’ve found here. If I could narrow down the list of suspects, I would certainly do so.” She shed her robe, naked and glorious in the dim light from the edges of the curtains, then wrapped her arms around herself. “I haven’t seen anyone I know from my life before. And the idea that someone might have seen me without me noticing is unsettling, to say the least.”
Coll walked around the edge of the bed and wrapped her in his arms. “I dunnae mean to widen our search, but could it be someone who’s admired ye on the stage? Some lunatic who cannae accept that Rosalind paired off with Orlando or someaught?”
“Oh, good heavens, I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, I suppose it could be. I receive some very interesting letters sometimes.”
“Letters? I’d like to see them, if ye dunnae mind. Anything over the past fortnight or so, unless ye recall something untoward nearly happening to ye before that.”
“They’re downstairs. But Coll, while I’m exceedingly relieved you came to see me last night, you have other obligations. I don’t want you to lose your inheritance because I didn’t hide well enough.”
He looked down at her upturned face. Coll reflected that he owed Niall and Aden both an apology for making fun of their claims that they’d just “known” when they’d found their lasses and hadn’t been able to explain it any other way. “Dunnae ye worry about me finding a wife,” he said with a slight smile. “I’ve someone in mind already.”
“Good.” Abruptly, she shrugged out of his grip and went to retrieve her prim black wig. “I hope my suggestions helped.”
“Aye, they did. I still havenae kept up my end of the agreement, though. I’m yer protector, and I mean to protect ye. If ye’ve paper about, I need to send Gavin over to Oswell House with a note for a couple of lads to help me keep watch here.”
“Gavin’s here?”
“Aye. I left him outside last night, watching the house.” He bent to pick up a hairpin and set it on the table next to her. “And dunnae fret about him. He’s been asked to do far worse.”
“We should still have him come in for breakfast. But I’m not staying here all day, hiding under the bed. I have rehearsals.”
“Temperance, ye—”
“I’m not trying to be foolish,” she broke in. “I told you that I want to stay. I have an obligation to Charlie and the Saint Genesius. At the least, I need to tell Charlie that I may be putting the rest of the troupe in danger and give him the opportunity to find someone else to play Lady Macbeth.”
That made sense. If she stopped appearing at the Saint Genesius, whoever wanted to harm her would have a more difficult time tracking her down. Keeping her safe mattered far more than a part in a play. “Ye should stay here. After I set some men on watch, I’ll go talk to Huddle.”
She shook her head, pausing to settle a pretty green and brown muslin gown over her shoulders. “I owe a great deal to Charlie. I will speak with him myself.”
“Temp—”
“Persephone, for heaven’s sake,” she broke in. “Temperance Hartwood was a long time ago, from a life I don’t want.”
“But I like knowing who ye are beneath everything else.”
“I’m the same woman I was before you knew I had another name, Coll. I don’t want you forgetting and calling me … that other name in front of people.”
She didn’t have an objection to being seen with him, then. That, of course, wasn’t at all the point of her argument, but it felt significant. “I’ll nae forget.” Stepping forward, he fastened the quartet of buttons running up her back, then closed his hand around her shoulder, turned her around, and kissed her.
Her arms crept up to grasp his shoulders as she returned the embrace, sinking along his chest. “What I’ve told you doesn’t change anything, you know,” she whispered against his mouth.
“It changes everything,” he countered. It changed the entire architecture of his world, but only as far as she would allow it. Any final decision rested with her. After what she’d been through, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Thankfully, he could be far more persuasive than people generally realized. “Have it as ye will, though,” he went on, to avoid another round of arguments. “Paper. I need paper.”
He pulled his shirt over his head and followed her out of the bedchamber. As soon as they trotted down the steep, narrow stairs to the wee dining room, he wrote a note to Aden, requesting a handful of the Highlanders they’d brought south with them. The rest of the staff of Oswell House could likely be trusted, but they owed their loyalty to Francesca, not to him.
Flora the maid wasn’t a grand cook like Mrs. Gordon at Oswell House, but with a small household like this one, he had to admire her skill. She’d made the dress Temperance currently wore, and several of the others in which he’d seen the lass. And though the bread and ham with gravy wasn’t anything fancy, it felt closer to a true Highlands breakfast than anything he’d eaten since he’d left home.
“Is there something I need to know, Miss Persie?” Gregory asked, stacking dishes to return to the kitchen. “That Gavin last night with all his talk of locking the door and finding a weapon had me awake sitting in the front room with my musket across my knees until dawn.”
Flora appeared in the dining room doorway on the tail of that comment. “And I nearly threw a pot at the milkman when he knocked at the back door. Miss Persie, I know something’s wrong. Please let us help.”
“It’s nothing,” Temperance said, sipping at a cup of tea Coll knew had long ago gone cold. “A bit of trouble with an old beau.” She sent a glance at Coll. “Isn’t that right?”
Damn it all; he didn’t like lying. But in a sense, she was correct, since as far as they knew, this was about her previous life—though it could just as easily have been about some madman disapproving of her performance as Juliet Capulet. “We think so, aye. I reckon I’ll get it sorted today.”
“Good,” Flora said, fanning at her face with a cloth. “My nerves haven’t been so rattled since that banker tried to follow you home for three nights in a row after you played Ophelia.”
Temperance grimaced at Coll’s sideways glance. “He was quite mad, I’m afraid, and was convinced that I should be placed in Bedlam for my own good.”
“Well, that’s nae at all worrying,” he muttered, mentally moving his low ranking for enraptured onlookers several rungs higher on his ladder of suspects.
“That sort of thing doesn’t happen often. Usually it’s men enamored of the character I’m playing and wanting to romance me.”
He liked that even less. How many men had attempted to woo, buy, or charm her since she’d begun acting? And how many of them had succeeded, if only for a night or two? Was he being an idiot for refusing to count himself in that number? Was it only because, by chance, he’d seen her first as herself backstage?
He’d never been foolish with women. Aye, he’d bedded his share, but he’d never given one enough of his heart to feel regret when they parted company. There had always been a more important obligation—to Clan Ross, to the MacTaggerts, and to Aldriss Park. Now, though, just the idea of her in another man’s arms was enough to make his jaw clench and his muscles bellow for battle. What it all meant, he didn’t know—or rather, he thought he did know, but given the lass’s reaction to the idea of forevers, he meant to keep it to himself. For now.
“I need ye to make me a list,” he said quietly, when the footman and maid returned to the kitchen. “All yer family, everyone ye’ve been … close to, anyone with whom ye’ve had an argument.”
“That’s quite a bit of my personal life, sir,” she stated, her cheeks growing pink. “I’m not certain I wish you to know all of that.”
“I ken, Persephone,” he commented, using her faux name deliberately, to remind her that he could be trusted. “Ye’ve done this on yer own until now. I can do more looking about than ye can, and me blundering my way through Society will cause less of a stir than if ye attempted it.”
“I don’t like that, Coll. You blundering, I mean. I have the feeling that if you truly wished to, you could have half a hundred women ready to wed you by now.”
“Aye?” He snorted. “Why have I nae, then? I could certainly use a bride.”
“Because you are as stubborn as the rain, and because I don’t think you generally do anything you’ve been ordered to do.”
That sounded fairly accurate, actually. “I’m nae a man to follow other people, I’ll admit. I’ll also admit that until a week or so ago, I wasnae hoping to find anyone with whom I’d care to spend my life. But then Aden went and agreed to wed Miranda, and my chances of getting that agreement changed went from fair to miserable.”
“‘Agreed to wed?’” she repeated, furrowing her brow. “Was it arranged, then?”
“Nae. She proposed to him.” He grinned. “Aden doesnae think he’s very honorable, but he got himself wrapped up in being proper toward her and then couldnae see a way out. Miranda solved it for him.”
She played with her fork for a bit. “You seem happy for him.”
Coll sighed. “Aye. I am. And for Niall. It’s just nae the way I’d planned any of this, and now I’m the one who’s stuck.” Clearing his throat, he downed the rest of his lukewarm tea. “That doesnae signify now, though. I made an agreement with ye, and I need those names if I’m to hold up my end of the bargain.”
“I’m only agreeing because I don’t want to leave London, and I would have to do so if I were on my own.” Pushing back from the table, she rose gracefully. “I have two hours before I need to be at the Saint Genesius. I’ll be in the morning room writing out a list if you need me.”
“Keep the curtains closed.”
“Ah, yes. We don’t want anyone shooting at me, do we?” With a smile that looked entirely forced, she glided out of the room.
Coll sat back in his chair. She lived in a modest house but employed two servants, had an abundance of nice clothes and wigs aplenty, and from the look of it, didn’t lack for food or money. And she’d done all that on her own. He meant to ask her why a proper lass with a proper education had decided to make her way in the world as an actress, but he imagined it had to do with her wanting literally to disappear—to become someone else, which she’d done onstage and off.
And she was good at it. The toast of London, famous and successful enough that his own younger sister had been near giddy with excitement at the idea of meeting her, and Eloise had made the acquaintance of Prince George and Queen Caroline in her short time being out.
All morning, he’d wracked his brain, trying to recall if he’d met Lord and Lady Bayton. He didn’t think so, since they hadn’t flung a marriageable daughter at him, but then he had to wonder how he would have reacted to a proper introduction to one Lady Temperance Hartwood. At eight-and-twenty she would have been considered on the shelf, her parents no doubt desperate to find her a husband and a title—and he likely would have run in the opposite direction.
If he and she managed a word or two before his flight, though, he preferred to think that she would have caught his attention—and his interest. The sound of her voice, the way she used words … Was that because of her training on the stage, or was that something she’d come by naturally that made her so well-suited to acting? Whatever it was, he found it mesmerizing.
He found her mesmerizing. And only the fact that he was loathe to leave her this morning kept him from pounding on every door in London until he’d discovered who it was trying to take her away from him. Even though it had been seventeen years since he’d last experienced being abandoned, it wasn’t anything he wanted touching him again. At least with his mother, hope had lingered for a time that she might return, that he might see her again. If he lost Temperance to someone else’s scheming, though, it wouldn’t be anything temporary.
Cursing, he went back upstairs and pulled on his waistcoat and coat, not bothering to button either of them. The cravat went into a pocket, and then he headed downstairs to wait for help to arrive—and to make a plan to save his lass, even though he didn’t know who might be after her.