Chapter 1

B RAMBLE H OUSE

T HE SCOTTISH LOWLANDS

A UTUMN, 1765

Y our father is here," Gunna whispered. She stood in the doorway, looking over her shoulder as if she expected Satan to be behind her. Nothing scared Gunna. At least, Kay MacFarlane thought interestedly, nothing until now.

And Fia, who usually seemed as composed as one of his tutor's mathematical theorems, flinched. "My father?"

"Aye." Gunna bit on the tattered scrap of her lower lip. "I could say yer gone."

Fia's black skirts rustled as she stood up. "No. I'm only surprised he's waited this long. The lawyers were here four months ago. Kay and Cora, please stay here with Gunna."

She disappeared into the interior of the house. Gunna hesitated, fixing both children with a stern glare. Cora hastily closed her open mouth and went back to her needlework.

"You two'd best wait here if ye want to go to bed with blameless bums tonight," Gunna warned, and hastened after Fia.

"The kitchen," Cora said, popping to her feet.

"Don't be such a child, Cora," Kay chided her. "You can't mean to eavesdrop. It's so juvenile. Besides, 'tis nearly dinner. There'll be so many pots and pans banging around we won't be able to hear anything anyway."

Cora gave him a sour look and disappeared. Kay waited a few minutes and then rose. It wouldn't be right to set Cora a bad example, but he would be a poor excuse for a stepson if he didn't bother to find out what had upset Fia enough to make her flinch.

He headed down the hall for the servants' staircase, on his way nabbing a glass goblet from the sideboard in the dining room. The chance reminder of their father caused him a moment of melancholy.

Father had died five months ago. Dead of one too many treacle puddings, or so they said, and was it a wonder? Last time Father had been to Bramble House he'd looked like a prize bull but without any of the bullish parts and naught left but fat and bluster.

The thought saddened Kay, for he remembered Father as stout and solid a man as Bramble House was a manor. He pushed his sadness away. Something important was happening. Though in all the years she'd lived here Fia had never spoken about Lord Carr, Father had more than made up for that oversight.

On his rare visits home he'd been full of tales of his bosom companion, Ronald Merrick, Lord Carr. Fia hadn't liked that much. Her skin would tauten up and her eyes would grow flat with every mention of Lord Carr's name. Not that Father had noticed—but then, he hadn't been a very "noticing" sort.

Upstairs, Kay dropped to his knees and upended the goblet on the bare floorboards. It took him a few tries, but finally he found the best vantage for listening. Fia's voice, low and throaty as a spring warbler's, vibrated through the glass.

"—surprised you didn't have him done away with at once."

"And play right into your hand, m'dear? I should hope I have more restraint than that. Why, if I had, you'd have inherited a rich estate. You'd have been completely independent. Oh yes, Fia. I knew your plan from the moment I heard you'd ‘eloped.' "

"You're forgetting his children." Fia's voice was a bit breathless. "His heirs."

The man laughed. "You know as well as I that had MacFarlane died when you'd first wed you would have had the management of his estate until the boy came of age. Still, from what I hear you didn't know about them, did you?

"How that must have pricked! I truly do wish I'd been a fly on the wall at that particular meeting."

There was a pause and Kay heard footsteps, measured and heavy. Lord Carr. When next he spoke it was directly beneath him but in a voice so low Kay only caught phrases.

"—enough faith in your imagination—"

"—sure you'd married with a plan already—"

"—dispose of the little—"

Then Fia's voice, cold and flavorless as ice. "Why did you come? You'd already sent your lawyers."

"I know the lawyers already told you," Carr purred, "but I could not deny myself the pleasure of repeating it to your face."

Fia's response was mostly lost but ended in the words "—how much?"

"Why, everything, my dear. Everything."

There was a long pause, then Fia murmured something indistinguishable.

"I should think you would be happy I did," Carr responded. "MacFarlane was certainly delighted to have me vouch for him. And carry him. And accept his notes. And his collateral. I believe," a pause, "I believe he saw it as evidence of our friendship."

"You befriended him for one reason." Fia's voice was clear this time. "To avenge yourself on me."

"You are wrong. Well, mostly wrong. Oh, Fia, we are so alike, you and I. I wouldn't expend my energy on simple vengeance for anyone but you, dear daughter. Is that not proof of my paternal regard?"

Fia did not reply. The silence beneath Kay swelled, bloated on the black stew of emotions he sensed in the room below. He did not fully understand what was being said, but instinctively recognized it as vile. He'd begun to rise to his feet when he heard Fia again.

"What exactly do you want?"

"Nothing much. Simply for you to fulfill that role I assigned you on your birth, that role that you should have fulfilled five years ago but which you circumvented by running off with your Scottish groom. The role you were bred to perform."

Something fell on the floor below.

"What's this? Emotions, Fia? Oh, my dear, you have grown soft here in your little country estate. It's quite quaint, isn't it? All greeny and flattish. Not to my taste, but I see you've grown fond of it. And you can keep it, too. If you follow my wishes."

She said something. Her words were muffled.

"Well," Carr replied, "first off, you must come with me to London."