Chapter Fifteen

Cold.

Like an itch that wouldn’t be quelled, the cold ached within Cat’s body. It wasn’t the ache from the fire Nathaniel tendered in her. Nay, it was a deep-in-your-bones sickly ache.

“She is shaking. ’Tis a good sign that her body is fighting for life.”

Cat recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. She inhaled and sought to stretch, but her head throbbed.

“We need to warm them both.” Nathaniel’s voice was heavy with worry. About her? The thought infused her.

The freezing sting on her cheeks was replaced by warm palms, and she opened her eyes. Nathaniel stared down into them as he cupped her face in his hands. “Good God, Cat. Are you well?” he whispered.

She blinked. “I foking hit my head again, didn’t I?”

He closed his eyes for a brief moment and exhaled as if relieved. “Yes. Yes, you did.”

His hand slid down her wet hair. “Damnation. You are ice.” His warm lips came to her forehead, kissing it, and then he leaned down to meet her gaze. “I thought…I thought I might lose you beneath the water, under the layer of ice.” His hand stroked her cheek.

“I had to save her,” she whispered.

“I know.” His fingers stroked the wet hair back from her face. “Thank God you knew how to tie the noose to slip around yourself.” His brows lowered. “How is it you know how to tie a noose exactly?”

“Craig, the blacksmith in Killin, taught me,” she said.

He nodded as if that explained everything when it likely just gave him more questions, questions she wasn’t ready to answer. Nathaniel wrapped another blanket over her head and down her shoulders, her body heat beginning to warm the musty river water that clung to her. She shivered, and Nathaniel cupped her cheeks again, trying to warm her. “God, Cat. I need to get you back to Finlarig where you can be safe.”

“Soon,” she whispered. “But there is something going on at Whitehall. I can feel it.”

“There is always something going on at Whitehall,” he said, his whisper hard with conviction. “Your life is worth more.”

She smiled gently, his words a balm more so than the blankets. “Why Lord Worthington. Ye give me hope that ye fancy me,” she teased.

He hovered over her, a deep furrow across his brow.

“I have no dry clothes here,” the woman said, and she saw the herb seller’s well-lined face over his shoulder.

Nathaniel slid his hands from her but continued to keep her gaze. “We can take her skirts off. She is wearing trousers beneath.”

Cat bent her knees under the water weight of her sodden skirts while he tugged on them. Mouse lay bundled under blankets on the other table. “I will get them both a tincture against fever and a poultice for that cut and bump on your lady’s head,” the woman said.

A gasp came from the tent flap. “What are you doing?” Esther Stanton charged inside, her voice a terse snap.

“I am removing her sodden skirts,” Nathaniel answered.

“She will be nearly naked, her smock soaked through,” Lucy Kellington said, ducking in behind Esther.

“There are trousers underneath for warmth,” he answered, and Cat felt him drag the skirts down over her legs. She pushed up onto one elbow, ignoring the ache in her head, as the herbalist brought her a warm drink, heavily scented with chamomile.

Esther stood with her two friends just inside the low tent. “How manly,” she said. “Though I would not expect anything less from a woman stupid enough to risk her life and yours, Nathaniel, to save a pickpocket.” Stupid? Cat swallowed, narrowing her gaze at the haughty woman. Where were her blades?

“A child, Lady Stanton,” Nathaniel said, correcting her. “Lady Campbell risked her life to save an innocent child.”

“Innocent? Doubtful, living on the streets,” Esther continued.

“A child left orphaned and without food or shelter,” Cat said, her words becoming a little stronger.

The healer came up with cloth laden with mashed herbs. “I have a poultice of comfrey and lemon balm to help the bump on yer head go down and the cut to heal without taint.”

“Is the girl well?” Cat asked.

Francis Whitley poked her head around Nathaniel’s broad shoulder. “Heavens, the child is likely to die of illness or pox or its own poverty,” she said as if being poor was the girl’s choice. “Foolish to risk your life and Lord Worthington’s to save it.”

“The girl is a she,” Cat said, her gaze narrowing on the privileged lady of the court. “Not an it.”

The differences between aristocracy and the common man was summed up in that little word. It. Francis Wickley didn’t see Mouse as a living human being, just an object to be scorned and pushed aside until she disappeared.

Cat looked back to Nathaniel. He’d been raised on the gilt side of this ugly line between wealthy and poor, yet he was different from them on so many levels. Kind, compassionate, truthful. Like no man she had ever met before. “We will care for the girl,” she said.

Nathaniel nodded, his legs braced as if he stood in battle, ready to draw his sword. Could he sense the hierarchical war churning around them within the tent?

The herbal lady held an arm under Mouse’s back to help her drink something warm. The girl drank and stared at Cat, her eyes large and unsure. Likely she would run if she weren’t so beaten down by the ordeal. “There is lots of room at the Highland Roses School,” Cat said. “Ye can return with me.”

“Good Lord,” Esther said, looking heavenward. “You certainly do collect strays. Be careful, Lord Worthington, or she will be scooping up the cats in the barns to carry back to Scotland.”

“In fact,” Cat said, leveling an icy look on Esther. “I do have a stray cat waiting at Hollings to return with me. A gift from Nathaniel.”

Esther’s mouth puckered as if she’d bitten a lemon tart without any sugar.

Nathaniel pulled some coin from his leather bag and set it in Lucy Kellington’s gloved hand. “Please find a dry petticoat or long cape for Lady Campbell to wear back to Whitehall. And a warm cloak for the child. Gloves and hat, too.”

“Certainly,” Lucy said, turning to link arms with Francis.

Esther stepped to the tent flap with them, whispering in Francis’s ear. A drumming on the back of Cat’s hand caught her attention. The herbal woman’s gnarled finger tapped lightly there, but she stared at Esther in the doorway. Then she glanced downward, and back up at Esther, and back down again several times. Her finger slid off of Cat’s hand to land on a jar sitting on the partially hidden shelf under the table where her dangerous herbs were kept. Without a sound, she tapped gently on one jar. Wolfsbane. She recognized the pale-yellow dried flowers of the toxic plant. Given in food or drink, it could cause vomiting, weakness, paralysis, sweating, breathing problems, heart failure, and death.

Cat turned her gaze to the noblewoman chatting with Nathaniel just inside and then looked at the herbal seller. The old woman gave one long nod, her face grim. So, Lady Esther Stanton had bought Wolfsbane from the herbalist. Was this why Esther didn’t want her to go to the Frost Fair and why she’d followed them into the tent after her near-drowning? To make certain the herbalist didn’t reveal anything to them?

Cat closed her eyes while lying flat once again. Her Gaelic words came in a whisper for the ears of the old woman. “London is a dangerous place. Ye should probably journey home to Scotland soon.”

…

Nathaniel bowed his head to the African lady, Ekua, as they stood outside Catherine de Braganza’s chambers. “You have been quite faithful to the duchess since the king’s death. Thank you.” The woman inclined her chin, the blue silk of her head wrap sliding forward across her shoulder.

Ekua glanced down at her gloved hands, clasped before her. “I am at the constant disposal of the duchess, though I do not wish it.” She looked back to Nathaniel. “What has become of my brother, Titus?” she asked in her exotic accent. Ekua had come to England with her brother, Titus, to represent their people inhabiting the west coast of Afrika. Catherine de Braganza was from Portugal, their government continually trying to expand into the African country by force. But before the queen could maneuver through the political battle to help Ekua’s people, King Charles had died.

“He is healing from the gunshot wound he suffered defending the duchess,” he said. “We left him in competent hands, and he was doing well. When he is fit, he can return to London for you. Titus was extremely concerned for your welfare and helped the assassins in exchange for keeping you safe.”

“Tell Titus to return home without coming through London else he be caught here, too.” She lifted her arms to indicate the rich garments that she wore. “A sorrowful bird in a golden cage. I remain here as a prize, dressed in silk to be looked at and to entertain the English nobles.”

He frowned. Many of the nobles felt compelled to remain at Whitehall as virtual servants for the monarch, but they were English men and women. There were cruel ship captains at the docks who traded humans as merchandise, but he hadn’t thought that the lady had also been stripped of her freedom. “Are you not treated well?” he asked.

“I am clothed in riches and sleep in noble chambers,” she said, though her voice was sad. “But a well-fed bird, applauded for its song, still longs to fly.”

“I have sway within the old parliament and within the military ranks as a past Lieutenant in Charles’s army. I will make inquiries on your behalf,” he said. “And I will send Titus home to your country through a different route, though I doubt he will leave you behind. He was willing to abduct a queen to keep you safe.”

“Tell him…tell him I order him to return without me.” She drew herself up tall, a powerful expression reminding Nathaniel of a commander. “As second born after our brother, King Osei Tutu. Tell him that, Lord Nathaniel.”

The woman was royal, in lineage and in character. Yet no one at court had alerted him to her station. Nathaniel bowed his head. “I will, your highness.”

Princess Ekua kept her head held high and turned, her skirts flaring out about her as she walked down the gallery toward the quarters assigned to the widowed queen Catherine. Blast. The English monarchy tried to control everyone and anyone. So far, James did not seem to be any different, except that he was even more Catholic than his brother, which was distasteful to his people.

Nathaniel pivoted, striding along the gallery, which housed Charles II’s vast collection of paintings. He’d left Cat and the child sleeping, with Jane watching over them, when Catherine had called him to her to question him about the disaster that befell Cat. The entire court was whispering, and in some cases laughing, over the spectacle of Cat being dragged unconscious across the ice with a sopping child clinging to her.

Nathaniel’s hands fisted at his sides as he strode. Even his friend from the army, Wallace Danby, had questioned why Cat would risk her life for the orphan. Had the people surrounding him at court always been so shallow, so unfeeling about human life? Had he been too wrapped up in creating a career, first in the military and then in politics, to pay attention to the cruel attitudes of the elite? Had his father’s prejudices passed to him?

His hand rose to rake fingers through his hair before he could stop himself. Bloody damnation. The sight of Cat’s pale face and blue-tinged lips haunted him. What if the river current had sucked her under the ice? The thought of the cold enveloping her, surging down into her lungs, twisted inside him. The world was full of color and interest with her in it. Without Cat Campbell, he realized, the landscape of his world would be nothing but a dull, colorless ordeal.

The unicorn painting stood opposite the door to her room. “Lord Worthington.” Jane hurried forward from the opposite direction, carrying a tray laden with food. “I stepped out to obtain some broth, tea, and bread for the lady. I have taken the child up to my chambers. She has eaten and is sleeping soundly.”

Nathaniel clasped the sides of the tray. “I will take it to Lady Campbell,” he said. For several seconds, they stood opposite one another holding the same tray. Jane Pitney had helped to raise him when he was a lad and his mother was too busy fussing after her daughters. Jane had always impressed upon him the need to act with decorum as befitting a Viscount. Even though he was an adult and the head of the Worthington family, she still held tightly to the tray, her lips pursed in a thin line.

“I would be happy to accompany you into the lady’s bedroom,” Jane said, her words soft but her gaze firm.

Nathaniel let his face harden into the look he’d learned from his intimidating father. “No harm will come to the lady, Mistress Jane.”

“She is unwed and—”

“Able to slice me stem to stern if I were to take unwanted liberties,” he finished, tugging on the tray until the china teacup rattled in its saucer.

“Pish,” she said, finally relinquishing the tray. “I know you would not take unwanted liberties. But misguided offerings are another issue completely.”

He almost smiled. “You fear for my virtue?”

She planted hands on her hips, leaning forward. “She is a passionate lady, and the way she looks at you…” She pointed one finger into his face, like she used to do when he was a naughty lad. “She plays as if her heart is made of ice, but I tell you, she is vulnerable here away from her home.”

His brows lowered. “You fear for her heart then?”

Jane crossed her arms over her bosom. “A hurting heart is easily trodden.”

With a small shake of her graying head, she turned to stride away, leaving him in the hall with the tray. He watched her until she disappeared and turned to the door. A hurting heart? He wasn’t the only one to see that Cat covered pain with anger.

He pushed into the room and paused, letting the door shut softly behind him as he stared at the large bed. Cat was asleep, and Lord help him, his heart beat quickened at the sight of her hair sprawled across the pillow like the morning after he’d loved her there.

A vulnerable heart? The boulder of guilt in his gut rose into his chest. When had things with her become so complicated? He should walk away from her before he won more than nights of unspeakable passion from her. They’d shared each other’s bodies, but what of her heart? Would it be torn apart when he admitted the sins of the past? He would demand an audience today with James on the matter of his previous oaths to the crown.

“Nathaniel?” Cat murmured as he set the tray down on the table next to the bed. She pushed up onto her elbows, the covers slipping back to show a simple smock with a satin ribbon tied at the neck. Cat’s hair had dried in wild curls after her bath to wash the filth of the Thames from her. He sat on the edge of the bed. Color had returned to her cheeks, but he longed to take her back out into the sun, so her freckles could spring forward again with health. Sun and fresh Highland air fed Cat.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “I should carry you back up to the Highlands this day.”

A smile touched her lips, bringing back some of the strength in her face. “I certainly did not hit my head nearly as much at home,” she said, touching where he knew a goose egg of a bump sat. “But Jane has made certain Mouse and I are clean, warm, and able to think straight.” She glanced around the empty room.

“Jane took the girl to her own room and said she is sleeping soundly.” He allowed a smile to grow on his mouth. “We cannot call the child Mouse,” he said. “Not when you are named Cat.”

She grinned, her shoulders moving with a small huff, but then she stilled, the expression on her lovely face darkening. “She does not want to return with us.”

“A child needs to be looked after,” Nathaniel said. “An adult to warn her not to go near the edge of the ice.”

“’Twas an adult who told her to go that way, Nathaniel.”

“What?”

Cat nodded. “She told me after we both bathed. Esther Stanton. I saw her talking to Mouse before I skated over. Mouse said Esther told her to save her penny by getting off the ice there. That the ice was solid. That the sign she couldn’t read said it was safe.”

Nathaniel’s scowl deepened. “What was her purpose for misleading the girl?” He’d known Esther Stanton for years. She was vain and petty, but he hadn’t known her to be devious and cruel without reason.

“Esther then pointed Mouse out to me,” Cat said. “She wanted me to follow her onto the cracking ice. And that is not all. The herbalist indicated to me that Esther bought Wolfsbane flower from her, a very potent poison. I think Esther was worried I might discover something at the Frost Fair, and that is why she did not want me to go.”

“You are accusing her of poisoning and then trying to coax you into a deadly accident?” Nathaniel asked, and his jaw clenched. “Cat, we need solid proof before speaking like that to anyone.”

She frowned at him. “Do what ye want with the information. Charles and James are your kings, not mine, despite them claiming Scotland. But mark my words, Esther Stanton is evil.”

Knock, knock.

Nathaniel opened the door to a lady’s maid, her eyes going wide at his presence. She held a tray with a goblet on it and bobbed her head. “I was asked to bring this to milady. A tonic to help her improve.”

“By whom?” Nathaniel asked.

“I was told to say it came from the lady Ekua,” the maid said. Nathaniel stepped aside, and the maid hurried in to set the goblet on the tray he’d placed by the bed.

“Told to say?” Cat asked.

The maid kept her gaze on the floor. She was a timid, thin girl. “Aye, milady. ’Twas given to me by a page within the queen’s household. I do not know his name.”

Nathaniel placed a shilling into her palm. “And another reward once you discover it.”

“Aye, milord.”

He shut the door behind her and turned to see Cat picking up the goblet. “Do not drink that.”

She hovered her nose over it. “Of course, I am not going to drink it,” she said, looking annoyed. “I have just said that Lady Stanton was buying poisonous Wolfsbane from the herbalist, and the maid does not know who gave it to her.”

“You are certain the herbalist said Lady Stanton?” Nathaniel asked.

“When I woke on the table under her tent, the crone indicated with her eyes, a tapping of her finger, and a nod that Esther was the one who had purchased some of the dried flowers. And Esther had been angered with the thought of me attending the Frost Fair when I heard her question Iain Padley in the hall at night.”

Nathaniel turned back to her. “When did the crone say it was bought? How long ago?”

“I did not have a chance to question her,” she said. “I should return before she leaves.”

“I will. You are resting.”

She sniffed the contents. “I smell wine, although there is something else in it for certain. But I cannot tell what.” She held it out to him. “Pour it in the clothes stool and set the empty goblet in the hall outside the door. Hopefully word that I drank it will reach whomever truly sent it.”

“I do not think Princess Ekua is guilty,” he said, taking the goblet. “I was just speaking with her about her brother, Titus, and she did not mention sending anything to you.”

“The beautiful lady with brown skin?” she asked. “Her hair wrapped up in silks?”

Nathaniel’s jaw hardened, his brows furrowing. “She is Titus’s sister, the one he was trying to protect when he took Queen Catherine from Finlarig Castle. I did not know that they were from a royal line.”

“A princess that someone is trying to blame, if something foul was put into my drink,” she said.

Nathaniel took the tonic, pouring it out to set in the empty corridor. No one but the maid and Jane knew he was inside alone with Cat. “I should go,” he murmured, turning to her. “Let you sleep. You can lock the door behind me.”

She looked at the tray. “Is the rest of this safe?”

“Jane brought it. She would have put everything together herself,” he said. “But I will ask her now before going back to the fair.”

“Ye will come back tonight?” Cat asked and pushed up in the bed, her smock slipping a bit to show one beautifully speckled shoulder. Lord how he wanted to kiss it, stroke away every nightmarish memory of her thrashing amongst the sharp ice, only a rope around her middle to save her from going under.

His chest tightened. A hurting heart is easily trodden. Jane’s words sank their talons into him, piquing his guilt. He walked to the edge of the bed. “Cat… I…have a past that is quite different from who I am now.”

Her hand rested on the top of his. “But this is now. I have learned to look only toward the days to come. The past is too dark to dwell upon.”

Standing beside the bed, his hands fisted at his sides. He should tell her of his past. It had gone too long since he realized the damn connection in the threads of their lives. Each time they came together, and he smothered the information that would surely make her pull away from him, guilt tainted the memory. Royal oaths be damned!

He caught her hands and bent to touch his forehead against hers. “There are things that I have not shared when I should have. Sins of the past. Reasons why we cannot be together.”

She frowned, pulling back. “Esther Stanton—”

“Has nothing to do with this,” he said and took a large breath to step back from her. “You do not know—”

“I know about your father’s will, Nathaniel,” she said. “Why ye cannot wed me.” She blinked, pushing back into the pillows.

Lord. He must reveal all. Let her know of his sins before meeting her up at Finlarig. “Cat, I—”

Knock, knock, knock. They both stared at the door, not saying a word.

“Worthington? Are you in there?”

He turned. Damn it all to hell. God, the fates, and the devil seemed to be working together against him. He threw open the door. Lord Wallace Danby’s quizzical face transformed into a teasing grin. “I thought you might be visiting our frozen heroine.” He peered around Nathaniel’s shoulder to where Cat had slipped from the bed and into a robe, cinching it tight about her middle.

“Good day,” she answered with a silent bob, her frown still in place.

“What do you want?” Nathaniel asked.

“King James is asking for you to attend him,” Danby said. “Something about your father’s will,” he said with questions in his voice.

A meeting with James? Finally, he could persuade the king to release him to explain his past to Cat. For he must, with or without royal approval. Nathaniel met Cat’s gaze, giving her a tight bow. “Sleep well, Lady Campbell, and be sure to lock this door.” He didn’t wait for a reply that probably wouldn’t come.

…

Jane pulled the silk ribbons of Cat’s corset tight. Cat tried not to suck in or Jane would bind her as tightly as a hanging noose. The woman finally tied the bows in back, and Cat let herself relax. The woman tossed a lovely petticoat to glide down over her head and tied it in place over the stays. The embroidered lavender petticoat flared out slightly from her hips, falling in a pool of silk behind her. The deep magenta mantua lay spread out on the bed to be placed on her like a long coat before being cinched up to expose the stomacher and petticoat in the front.

“Does everyone dress for dinner as if attending a ball?” Cat asked, already trying to shift the hard boning of the stays that would leave lines pressed into her skin even through her smock.

“Yes, milady,” Jane said and held up three different black stickers that were cut in the shapes of birds. “Which patch would you like to wear on your face?”

“Ye know, Jane, ye can just say yes when no one else can hear. All this milady and Lady Campbell irritates me.”

“Then court irritates you, because that is what we say at court.”

“Aye, court irritates the bloody hell out of me,” Cat said, frowning in the polished glass that stood before her. “And not just because someone might be trying to kill me.” The goblet was not taken from the hallway, and no one had tracked Nathaniel down to ask if she were ill or dead. As far as Cat knew anyway. She hadn’t seen him since he left her chambers yesterday afternoon.

Cat frowned as she flipped their conversation around in her mind like she’d done all night. Guilt had sat in his features. What had Nathaniel been hiding from her? Sins of his past? Something that prevented him from returning to her chambers after meeting with King James about wedding Esther Stanton, the devil’s daughter. And Jane said he’d been out searching all this day for the herbalist, first at the Frost Fair and then through the streets of London.

“You could eat in your bed chamber,” Jane suggested.

“Then I will not be able to catch Lady Stanton looking surprised that I am not frothing at the mouth or dead on the floor of my bedchamber.” Or catch Nathaniel alone to make him finally tell her about these sins that seemed to torture him.

Jane made a noise of caution. She’d heard the story of Esther’s tricks out on the thin ice from Mouse before the girl left Whitehall that morning. “Lady Stanton is a powerful woman from a powerful family. A word from a stranger will not hold up against her. The crone may have sought revenge for a snub from the lady.”

“And telling a child to walk across the thin ice of a frozen river?” Cat asked. “And then pointing her out to me so I would drown as well?”

Jane shook her head. “It will be her words against the child’s, and I daresay, Lady Stanton will plead innocent of all wrong doings.”

Jane was right, of course, but Cat’s fingers itched for her sgian dubh. Not only was she certain the haughty woman was guilty of buying poison and sending a little girl to a likely death, she was sure that everyone at court would believe Esther Stanton over Cat Campbell.

“Which patch for your face?” Jane asked again.

She huffed. “I swear on my mother’s condemned soul… If I am the only woman wearing a foolish scrap of black velvet stuck to her face, I am coming back to strip ye down, stick the patches all over your arse, and make ye parade up and down the picture gallery at knife point.”

Cat let Jane push her down into a chair before a mirror. The woman wore a grin. “Noted.” She frowned but pointed at a small sparrow cut from the black material. “I will stick it at your temple as if it were flying away. It represents freedom.”

“Unfortunately, sticking a picture to one’s face does little to procure the prize,” Cat said and watched Jane dab something on the back of the patch, sticking it deftly to her skin. If it itched at all, she would likely scratch it off without thinking about it anyway.

“There, it looks quite appealing with your hair curled up around the fontage,” Jane said with a true smile. It was as if Cat was her canvas, and she was proud of the results of her talent.

Cat studied the reflection of her hair, looped and pinned on top of her head around a ridiculous-looking hairpiece of stiffened lace, the hair stick poking into it. Despite the splattering of freckles, she did resemble the refined ladies at court. Would Nathaniel find her polished like a true lady?

“Ye have done well with me,” she said.

“You have a natural beauty,” Jane said, meeting her gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “Not like these ladies who layer pigment on their skin and float around as if they are above everyone.”

Cat watched her walk toward the bed to find her shoes or gloves or some other absurd must-have for dinner. “Lady Stanton floats around,” she said.

“She is one of the most…regal-acting,” Jane said as if choosing her words carefully. She shook her head. “And with such little regard to the poor in this world.” Mouse had escaped Whitehall as soon as Jane had made certain the girl was dry and fed and Cat had equipped her with warmer clothing acquired with some of Nathaniel’s coins.

“The late Viscount of Hollings wanted Nathaniel to marry her,” Cat said and studied Jane. “Put something about it in his will?”

Jane’s lips pinched. “Lord Worthington’s father wanted what was best for the Worthington family and thought he knew what that was. But certainly, he would not want his son to wed a traitor,” she ended with a whisper.

“What does the will say exactly?” Cat asked.

“It is a description of Lady Stanton without saying her name.”

Cat stared hard at her. “So…it says that Nathaniel Worthington, fifth Viscount of Lincolnshire must wed a haughty bitch who acts as if her shite doesn’t stink?”

Jane covered her mouth, her brows raised, but she couldn’t tell if it was with shock or humor. And she didn’t care as anger uncurled within her.

Jane lowered her hand, her lips parted. Shock then. She blinked at Cat’s reflection. “Not that exact. It says a refined lady from a powerful family of at least his rank. A woman who is in favor with the monarchy. Lord Stanton did discuss his daughter with the old Viscount though. If he were still alive, he would push the union. Since he died, Lord Stanton has gone directly to King James, who does support a grand wedding in order to draw attention away from his rapid ascension and Catholic leanings.”

“Unless Esther is guilty of treason,” Cat reminded her.

“Certainly. Lord Stanton,” Jane continued, “is the most powerful of the King Charles’s old advisors and is becoming a favorite of King James since he has not spoken out against his Catholic ways, at least publicly. So, King James seems quite happy to help the Marquess arrange the union.”

Cat yanked her gloves on. “Will Nathaniel lose all of his inheritance if he does not marry as his father specified? Can he ruin his son’s life from the grave?”

Jane sat down on the edge of the chair next to her, nodding. “It is done within the nobility. If Benjamin Worthington had his solicitor write it in his will that Nathaniel Worthington must marry a refined lady from a powerful family or forfeit his estate and fortune, then yes, he can still rule his son’s life from the cold, dark grave. Though milord would keep the title of Viscount.”

Could one be paid for merely having a title? Not if he wasn’t employed to sit within parliament.

“And without his fortune, all under his employ would lose their posts, and Hollings Estate would fall to ruin without upkeep unless he sells it.” Jane shook her head. “Likely Lady Evelyn’s school would close as well, although I have heard that the duchess, when she was queen, said she would support the Highland Roses School since the students saved her life.” Jane shrugged. “Not sure if that has changed since she lost the throne.”

Lord. “Where is Nathaniel now?” Cat asked, standing out of her chair, the heaviness of her costume swaying around her as she turned. They must talk. Although, each time she was near the man, her senses tipped directly toward a carnal outcome. Her gaze landed on the sturdy posters holding up the canopy that she’d clung to the first night she’d stayed at Whitehall. Sins of the past. What sins had stopped him from returning to her last night?

Jane stood too. “You can see Lord Worthington at dinner in less than an hour.” She stared at her. “You look flushed.” She frowned, studying her as if she had more to say but chose to hold her tongue.

Cat lay palms on her own cheeks, the coolness of the leather gloves beating back the heat of an embarrassed and irritated blush. “Just trying to keep my temper reined.”

Jane reached out to fluff her petticoat and lay out the train of the mantua. “Yes, a refined woman must always keep her temper in check, else do terrible ruin to her reputation.” She stood back, running her gaze along Cat’s form. She smiled. “You are complete, Lady Campbell.”

Cat stood away from the chair and gazed at her reflection. She barely recognized herself. Head to toe she looked like an English queen, wearing the magenta mantua over the lavender petticoat, the stomacher matching the golden embroidery throughout. The neckline was seductively low, exposing her collarbones and cleavage with her curls pulled back and up, fashioned high and intertwined with the white lace headdress. The tips of her matching slippers could just be seen under the silk edge of her petticoat.

“You are lovely, Lady Campbell,” Jane said, a smile transforming her face into a look of approval, but then her lips thinned somewhat. “Now if you can control your tongue, you will come across as a refined lady.”

Cat couldn’t tear her eyes from the amazing vision before her. “Ah, but I will never come from a powerful English family.”

Jane clicked her tongue as she moved behind her, bustling up the long train. “Well now. I have not heard that the will says anything about him needing to marry into an English family. And a group of Campbell warriors seem rather powerful to me.”

Cat lifted her gaze to look at Jane over her shoulder. There was an odd twinkle in the woman’s eyes. Did she want Nathaniel to wed her?

Rap. Rap. Cat’s stomach jumped at the knock. Nathaniel?

Jane opened the door, but the man standing there was slim and small in stature. He looked vaguely familiar.

“Master Brooks,” Jane said with surprise.

Master Brooks glanced inside the room, his gaze stopping on Cat. “I…I…am here to escort Lady Campbell to dinner. Lord Worthington was called into a meeting with His Majesty King James, so he asked me to collect her…” He stopped and swallowed, giving her a small bow. “I mean to say, I am here to collect you, Lady Campbell, for cards and conversation before being served.” He bowed low. “Edward Brooks, at your service.” He straightened. “I am the solicitor for the Worthington family.”

Edward Brooks, she remembered him from her sopping entry into Hollings. He was the solicitor who would have written up Benjamin Worthington’s will. She smiled at him, trying to keep the glint in her eyes friendly and not predatory. The man looked easily frightened, like a hare surrounded by wolves. She walked forward, the gentle sway of the heavy costume around her brushing the floorboards and rich woven rug as the edge of the embroidered train followed behind.

“Master Brooks,” she said, her voice soft as she demurely rested her gloved fingertips on his arm. “Have you, by chance, ever seen the massive strength displayed by Highland warriors during a caber toss exhibition?”

He turned to lead her from the room. “No, milady, I have n-not.”

She smiled sweetly into his flushed face. “Well now, I will tell you all about it. You see, the Campbell clan is the most powerful family in Britain.”

He led her down the hall of bedrooms. “The cabers can weigh one-hundred-and-fifty pounds and reach twenty feet in length,” she said, and he steered them down the long gallery where she had witnessed Esther’s meeting with Iain two nights ago. She noted, out of the corner of her eye, that the statue of Queen Mary had been replaced with a statue of a warrior on a rearing stallion. Would the art piece be banished to the rubbish pile or was her nose being glued back on?

“A massive feat,” he said, leading her toward an arched doorway into a salon.

“We do not dine in the banqueting hall?” she asked.

“No, milady,” he said, the stutter finally having faded as she drew him into casual conversation, playing the part of a refined lady. Cat found acting rather easy when she put herself completely into the role. “The building is far too large for a simple meal.”

Simple meal? And yet she was to dress as if going to a ball.

“The Banqueting Hall is used for plays and balls mostly,” he continued. “But also to greet ambassadors, and on Maundy Thursday, it is where the benevolent king gives out shoes and food to the poor.” They reached the salon off to the right where the hum of conversation came. “Cards will be played before and after,” he said. “A quieter pursuit to dancing in light of King Charles’s recent death.”

“Speaking of that sad occasion, were you by chance at Whitehall when the king died?” she asked, watching the nervous man.

He shook his head. “No, milady. I was not present on the day he died, although I had met with Lord Stanton in my London office two days beforehand.”

“Oh? What business did he have with ye?”

The man’s eye twitched. “The Marquess wished to send a missive to Lord Worthington.”

“About?”

The man’s face turned red. “I am sorry, milady,” he said, averting his gaze to the hem of her petticoat. “But I cannot discuss my client’s business.”

“So Lord Stanton is also your client?”

“Please, milady,” Brooks said, indicating the salon with an outstretched hand. Several gentlemen stood outside the room, turning to look at her as they approached.

“I know how to play Whist. Perhaps you would care to play a hand or two,” Cat said as she returned the nods from two men who may have helped her and Mouse at the Frost Fair, though her memories of the incident were muddled.

“I am afraid I have work to do, milady,” Brooks said.

Did that work include plotting to poison her? Could Lord Stanton have asked Master Brooks to send her a tonic that would make her slumber for eternity? Cat was starting to think that the English court was more dangerous than taking down a wild boar by herself.

Dressed in fine clothes with long, dark wigs, the two men near the door were friends of Nathaniel. One stared without returning her nod while the other one smiled, his lips turning up with his brows in nothing less than a seductive grin. There was a definite invitation lurking in Lord Danby’s face, and she averted her gaze to the gold leaf paper adorning the walls.

Without further words, Master Brooks indicated the door. Cat stepped inside under an archway and paused, her gaze sliding along the silk and velvet bedecked people in the room. Some stood talking in clusters while others sat around card tables. She didn’t see the tall, broad figure of Nathaniel. Was he still meeting with the king about Esther Stanton?

Next to them, a man in a powdered wig stood at attention. “Lady Catriona Campbell of Killin, Scotland and Master Edward Brooks of Lincolnshire.”

Feminine laughter lifted from the back of the room where three heads of golden curls sat at a table near the hearth. Several other ladies, splendidly dressed, turned to look at Cat, some of them frowning, almost all of them whispering to another lady or gentleman standing near them. Apparently being rude was permissible at court as long as it was said in whispers.

Lord Danby came inside to stand next to her. “Lady Campbell. We have not been formally introduced. I am Lord Wallace Danby, a friend of Lord Worthington’s. I am very glad to see you recovered from the Frost Fair.”

“Thank you,” she said, stretching the you out to play her part of refined English lady. “Especially if you played a role in my rescue.”

He bowed his head. “A service I gladly provided.” He offered her his arm. “May I show you to a table?”

Since Nathaniel wasn’t yet present, and standing in the doorway with the nervous Master Brooks wasn’t ideal, she set her fingertips on his arm. “I know few people at court, but I do know how to play at cards.”

Thank goodness Nathaniel had taught her on their journey south. Right now, she would happily give all the finery she wore to be alone with him again in their snug cabin. She’d squandered her time with him then, letting her anger keep her from him because he was English and taking his comment about her being a diversion as an insult. Aye, he was English, and aye, she was a diversion to his senses. The first fact she could look past, and the second she frowned over. Had he left her last night because she was once again a diversion?

Cat noticed one woman standing in the corner next to a stringed instrument set on a pedestal. Princess Ekua was dressed in pale rose silk with a matching head wrap. “Perhaps we can say hello to Her Royal Highness, Princess Ekua,” she said, indicating the lovely woman.

“First meet Lords Kellington and Wickley, as you have spent time with their daughters, Lady Lucy and Lady Francis,” he said, steering her toward two older men who were staring openly at her. Danby leaned down to her ear. “And might I say you look enchanting tonight. I had no idea that Scottish ladies were so unique and handsome.”

Cat wasn’t sure what to do with his flattery. “Thank ye,” she said, her accent slipping. She cleared her throat. “And you…look very handsome as well.”

Danby laughed and fingered his mustache, which stood twirled out from his lips on both sides. Cat felt herself flush but refused to acknowledge it. She had the most basic training in court etiquette. With each word she uttered among these people, she failed somehow.

“Lord Kellington. Lord Wickley. May I present Lady Campbell from Scotland.” They bowed their heads as did she.

“Yes. From the wilds of Scotland,” Lord Kellington said. “We met briefly upon your arrival at Hollings Estate.” He smiled broadly, and Cat could see the resemblance to his daughter, Lucy. “I daresay that the fresh air breeds hearty beauties up in our northern territory. No plague or pox up there in the wilderness, is there?”

“No, milord,” she said. “Just snarling wolves, famine, and power-hungry Englishmen with muskets.”

All three courtiers stared at her for a moment before Danby broke the tension with a hearty laugh, which the other two picked up immediately as if not to be left out of the jest.

Lord Wickley glanced around, a sly grin on his face and lowered his voice. “And nary a Catholic in sight.”

Lord Kellington snorted and shook his head. “One would think that the king would have picked up the protestant habit from living amongst the Scots for a time when his brother sent him into exile there, but that wife of his…” Mary of Modena was an Italian duchess before her husband stepped into the kingship upon the death of his brother, Charles. “She has bewitched the king with her popish ways.”

“’Tis not the best place to be spouting treason,” Danby said and nodded toward a door to the left, which had just opened. Standing under the archway was a tall, well-proportioned lady with dark hair, curled up in court fashion. Her gown was golden, and the short necklace around her throat was made of large white pearls, contributing to her air of royalty.

Everyone in the room turned toward her as if she were the sun itself directing the bright flowers. “Her royal majesty, Queen Mary,” the man at the far door called out, although the room had already hushed. Cat, jarred from her study of the woman, curtseyed low with the rest of the ladies in the room while the men all bowed as if in orchestrated unison.

The queen nodded to the room and entered. Esther, and her two friends, immediately walked over to her, curtseying low before her. She held up a hand to stop them from following her as she walked through on her way out into the corridor where an official-looking courtier waited to escort her somewhere.

Danby’s mouth lowered to her ear. “The queen looks pale tonight. There are whispers that she is with child again. She has lost so many, and after her young daughter, Isabel, died, several years ago, she became even more passionate about her religion, fanatical even.”

Cat stepped farther from the man. “A blessing if she is with another child then.”

Danby canted his head. “If she bares a boy, the babe would be heir to the throne over James’s eldest daughter, Mary, who is wed to William of Orange. The people will rise against them if they decree that a boy child will inherit, because James and his queen will no doubt raise him Catholic. Even a girl child would throw the country into alarm as she would be raised Catholic and could possibly steal the future crown from her Protestant sister.” He stepped close to her once again, and Cat’s gut flipped inside as if she were being cornered. Lord Danby didn’t know that she possessed five ways to kill him if he overstepped himself. Would a refined lady give him a warning before stabbing him in the throat or eye?

“Excuse me,” she said, turning on her heel to walk directly to Princess Ekua who still stood alone in the corner. Did her abrupt departure seem rude? She didn’t care in the least.

Cat bowed her head in greeting. “Your Royal Highness, I am Cat Campbell from Scotland.” She straightened, smiling. “I know your brother, Titus. He helped us save Queen Catherine and another Englishwoman. He is quite strong and brave.”

A gentle smile touched Ekua’s lips. She was beautiful with flawless, brown skin and warm, almond-shaped eyes. “Lord Worthington told me that you had helped Titus heal from his wounds.” She bowed her head. “For this, I am very thankful.”

“He was quite concerned about you being here,” Cat said and moved to stand next to Ekua, their backs to the wall. “Are you well?”

Ekua didn’t respond for several moments. “There are several definitions of well,” she said, and Cat felt almost spellbound by her accent. Royal and thick with colorful twists, which spoke of mysteries and a rich culture about which she knew nothing. “My health is quite well, thank you,” she said. “The English court is generous with their food and trinkets.” She fingered a gold cross pinned to the top of her bodice.

From across the room, Esther Stanton stared at Cat and then shifted her gaze to Ekua. Tipping her head, the woman tapped her gloved finger on her lip and said something to her two blonde friends, which made them also look over.

“I believe we are being watched,” Cat said.