Prologue

London, England

1739

I n the glittering, beeswax-scented drawing room of Kensington Palace, Orin Hume stood beside a Palladian window. Clenching his jaw lest he laugh, he and this great cloud of witnesses comprised of the Court watched what resembled a stage play as an especially prominent lady-in-waiting tried to maneuver her wide hoops through a side door. Finally, in a fit of temper, she freed herself, her panniered petticoats shuddering, her lofty wig listing to one side.

The sultry June heat frayed the steadiest nerves and did the heavily made-up courtiers few favors, their lead-painted faces shining, rouged cheeks sliding to chins marked with velvet beauty patches. Did he look equally absurd in their illustrious eyes being clad in plain if finely tailored dark blue? He shunned the requisite high collar in favor of a snow-white stock and wore unadorned silk hose, his only embellishment the diamond-crusted silver buckles on his shoes. His rebelliously unpowdered hair was distinctive and he defied the filthy norm by bathing once a day.

He, a humble Lowland Scots lad, should have been impressed by the flash of jewels and array of silks and laces. But time among the bickering, scheming, flirting Court led to a loathing he found hard to suppress. Despite his rather romantic profession, he had an intensely practical nature and a canny eye for the ridiculous.

"Mr. Hume, I presume?" An elderly matron raised a heart-shaped quizzing glass to look him over. Was she advertising her intentions?

He gave a slight bow, trying to place her.

"Allow me to introduce my niece, Lady Theodosia Spencer."

"Milady," he murmured, meeting the lively eyes of yet another obliging young lass.

"Would you accompany me to the punch bowl, sir?" she asked with a flick of her fan. "And perhaps share a bit of verse?"

"The punch, aye," he said with a smile. "A bit of verse, nay."

She tittered coyly as if he was guilty of flirting with her. "I admit I'm rather excited about the forthcoming royal birthday." Her gaze wandered from him to the canopied throne of the monarch at the far end of the drawing room. "The celebration usually begins in the morning, does it not?"

"With divine service," he said. "Kirk, we Scots call it."

"Followed by your ode in His Majesty's praise as Poet Laureate, set to music by the Master of Music." She accepted the punch he handed her. "And then there's to be an afternoon drawing room and an evening grand ball."

Orin nodded and eyed the courtyard out another window where his sedan chair waited. He always seemed to be standing by palace windows. An escape, he guessed. And escape he did, a quarter of an hour later at midnight. The summer moon hung like a discarded pearl over the palace's once formal gardens which the late Queen Caroline had exchanged for a more natural look. Somewhere near was the royal exotic menagerie, including caged lions and tigers. Many evenings he'd left the palace to the frightful chorus of their roars.

He stood by the Long Water in the moonlit dark, feeling much further than four hundred miles from home. The Queen's Temple crowned the hill above, reminiscent of the old Saxon gatehouse at Wedderburn Castle. How had The Gentleman's Magazine described it?

A heap of stones, thrown into a very artful disorder, and curiously embellished with moss and shrubs, to represent rude nature.

Rude nature, aye. That was what he craved after so much civility .

He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the silvery water, the breeze lifting and carrying the scent of the gardens, roses foremost. Apothecary and Maiden's-Blush, Rosamundi and Moss. Even after five years he couldn't distance himself from the scent and the lass who'd become one and the same in his head and heart.

Lady Maryn Lockhart.