ROMANCING THE SCOT E-Book

May McGoldrick

• Herausgeber: Book Duo Creative
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Pennington Family Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 431

Beschreibung

Meet the new generation of Penningtons...five brothers and sisters of passion and privilege. Enter their aristocratic world…where each will fight injustice and find love. Hugh Pennington - Viscount Greysteil, Lord Justice of the Scottish Courts, hero of the Napoleonic wars - is a grieving widower with a death wish. When he receives an expected crate from the continent, he is shocked to find a nearly dead woman inside. Her identity is unknown, and the handful of American coins and the precious diamond sewn into her dress only deepen the mystery. Grace Ware is an enemy of the English crown. Her father, an Irish military commander of Napoleon's defeated army. Her mother, an exiled Scottish Jacobite. Running from her father's murderers, she never anticipated bad luck to deposit her at the home of an aristocrat in the Scottish Borders. Baronsford is the last place she could expect to find safety, and Grace feigns a loss of memory to buy herself time while she recovers. When their duel of wits quickly turns to passion and romance, Grace's fears begin to dissolve…until danger follows her to the very doors of Baronsford. For, unknown to either of them, Grace has in her possession a secret that will wreak havoc within the British government. Friend and foe are indistinguishable as lethal forces converge to tear the two lovers apart or destroy them both!

Leseprobe

ROMANCING THE SCOT

MAY MCGOLDRICK

withJAN COFFEY

Book Duo Creative

Thank you for choosing Romancing the Scot. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the authors.

Romancing the Scot

Copyright © 2022 by Nikoo and James McGoldrick

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher: Book Duo Creative.

Cover by Dar Albert, WickedSmartDesigns.com

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Edition Note

Author’s Note

Also by May McGoldrick, Jan Coffey & Nik James

About the Author

To Donna Boyko

A good friend, a lifetime fan,

and a compassionate soul

1

Antwerp

May 1817

For the bird that struggles to fly, the Lord finds a low branch.

How many times had those words come back to Grace in her eight and twenty years of life? It had to be true. How else would she have been able to live without a mother or a permanent home, or siblings, or aunts or uncles or cousins? She’d never had any real family to call her own beyond this father who once stood tall and strong as an oak. And now even he was withering quickly before her eyes.

“Damn this blasted leg.”

Grace paused from wrapping the wound and looked up at Daniel Ware. His blue Irish eyes were glazed with pain. Two years had passed since he’d been badly injured leading his regiment of dragoons against the English at Waterloo, where so many innocent lives had been wasted. He’d lived, as tens of thousands had not. But the colonel’s leg had never been treated properly, and his wound had continued to fester. He’d fought it—and ignored it—for a long time, but on this journey back from America, the infection had again begun to spread. The knee and the entire lower leg were now bloated and discolored.

“Where is our bloody carriage? We must continue on to Brussels. I have no desire to tarry here.”

“The carriage is coming with the trunks from the ship,” she assured him, motioning to the valet to give her father another dose of the laudanum.

“This is taking too bloody long.” The colonel tried to stand but sank back in the chair.

“Father, you must sit still and let me finish.” Grace worked hurriedly to bind the leg.

Traveling through rough seas and frequent rain squalls, the journey from America had been grueling, to say the least. Their cabin—one of only twenty on the ship—offered far more comfort than steerage, where poorer travelers huddled together in the darkness and the damp. But her father had still suffered greatly. He’d only been able to leave their room once, carried in his chair by two manservants to the deck. Grace looked after him while he was awake, but whenever he slept, she’d escaped to the deck. There, even in bad weather, she found respite and occasional conversation with fellow travelers.

“This medicine is too weak,” the colonel complained. “I need more.”

Grace shook her head and gestured to the valet to put the bottle away.

“You know the laudanum requires several minutes to take effect. I’ve given you two teaspoons, and that’s all you can take.”

“I’ll have it, by God!” he snapped.

“You won’t,” she replied. “Don’t doubt me, Father. You must give it time to work.”

Before preparing the concoction of opium and alcohol herself in Philadelphia, Grace had read every medical treatise she could get her hands on. She had the unique ability to recall every word she read; she could quote the dosages verbatim. She knew how strong the medicine was and how to use it. And she’d packed enough bottles in their trunks to last until they reached Brussels.

“Think of something else,” she said more gently.

Grace knew he had plenty to occupy his mind, aside from his health. Although Daniel Ware didn’t speak of it, he was carrying a message from Joseph Bonaparte to his wife, Julie, in Brussels. Since the emperor had been imprisoned on St. Helena, his brother—the former king of Naples and Spain—had been living in America in the guise of the Count of Survilliers. Messages went back and forth all the time between those still loyal to the Bonaparte family.

He frowned fiercely at her. “So where’s the blasted carriage?”

She smiled back at him. “That’s my courageous father.”

The doctors in Philadelphia had offered no hope for recovery. They told her that his leg should have been amputated immediately after Waterloo. That was the only thing that could have saved his life. Tough and obstinate, the colonel wouldn’t allow it then. And now they both knew it was too late.

They had half a day’s carriage ride remaining to reach Brussels, and Grace knew it would be hell for him. She pulled the stocking up over the dressing. She touched her father’s brow. His skin was clammy and hot to the touch, and his pulse was too quick. The fever had been growing worse for days. She’d questioned his decision to continue on immediately after arriving in port, but he’d been adamant. She feared for him trying to manage this final stage of the journey.

A fist tightened around her heart, but Grace stubbornly blinked back tears. She didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. But she couldn’t think about herself right now. She had to be strong for him.

An unsteady hand reached out and he touched a strand of her hair. “Even in these dingy rooms, your hair glows like gold,” he said gently. “You’ve come to look so much like your mother.”

It had been so many years since Janet Macpherson passed away. Grace had no memory of her. But in recent months, as the wound continued to slice away at her father’s vitality, he talked of her more often.

“Have all our things been conveyed from the ship?” His words slurred as the laudanum started to take effect. She was glad of it. There was no point in him suffering needlessly.

“I’ve taken care of it.”

“Of course,” the colonel said. “You manage everything so well. What a fine officer you would have made.”

Before they left, she had orchestrated every stage of the journey—from packing their six chests to hiring the boatmen in Bordentown for the trip downriver to Philadelphia to the arrangement of the cabin for the ship’s passage.

“You have my directions?” he growled in a low voice. “Portugal code.”

“You know me, Father. Your orders are locked in my memory.”

Under the effects of the laudanum, his mind was again wandering back to his fighting days on the Peninsula. She was one of his subordinates, and he insisted on her knowing the orders.

Grace kissed his hand and nodded at the valet, who was waiting to help her father into his boots.

Above the din rising through the open windows outside, she heard the wheels of a carriage approach. She glanced at the two manservants standing ready to bring the colonel’s chair down to the street.

Going to the window and looking out, she espied the vehicle she’d hired.

“Something’s wrong.”

Drat, she cursed silently. No luggage had been secured on top of the carriage. She peered down at the driver. It was definitely the same man with whom she’d arranged for their transport. She’d directed him to take charge of their chests as they were unloaded from the ship, but he hadn’t brought them.

“Wait here. Don’t bring him down yet,” she said to the valet before touching her father’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Grace stormed along the dark, winding hallway. This was unacceptable. She wanted to be on the road to Brussels now, while the laudanum made the trip easier for her father.

She descended the battered back staircase to the odorous, garbage-filled alley that ran along the side of the inn. As soon as she exited the building, a gang of street urchins left off their play battle for a barricade of broken crates and ran to her.

“Hullo, boys,” she said, taking a breath to calm her rising temper.

It didn’t matter if she were in Antwerp or Naples or Madrid or Paris or Philadelphia; these ragged children of the streets existed everywhere. She pulled a handful of coins from her pocket and distributed them as she strode quickly toward the front of the inn.

The boys moved with her to the end of the alley like a swarm of bees, thanking her profusely. When she reached the carriage and looked inside, the driver climbed down from his perch and joined her.

“What happened to our trunks? I told you to bring them from the ship.”

“But I was told they were to come in the other carriage.”

“I hired no other carriage.” Grace felt the blood pulsing in her temples. They didn’t need this complication. Now they would need to return to the pier and locate their belongings. “Who told you such a thing?”

“The other gentleman.” The driver’s face fell. “You mean he wasn’t amongst your party, m’lady? He said he was traveling with you. He seemed to know you. His servants took the luggage.”

“I gave you explicit directions. Instead of following them, you gave our trunks to a stranger.”

“I’m so sorry, m’lady.” He looked helplessly back toward the docks.

Grace quickly ran through her options. She’d send one of their manservants running ahead to the pier. Perhaps this “other gentleman” had realized by now that he made a mistake and had returned the trunks. She glanced up at the windows of the inn, knowing that was too much to hope for.

“Wait here,” she ordered.

Grace went down the alley and took the back stairs. Her mind was racing as she hurried along the dim hallway. Turning the corner by their rooms, she slipped on something wet and nearly fell. She held on to the wall. Her father’s valet lay motionless at her feet, his blood pooling around him.

Bile rose in her throat. Horror locked her knees. She stared, stunned and chilled, unable to fully comprehend what had happened.

From inside, she heard the muffled sound of men’s voices. Fear for her father slid like a blade between her ribs and pierced her heart. Grace forced herself to step past the valet and looked in.

They’d been traveling under an assumed name, but trouble had been waiting for them here in Antwerp, after all.

Men were searching the room. Chairs were upended. One of the manservants lay sprawled across the table and the other had rolled against the wall. Directly ahead of her, she stared aghast at the body of her father slouched in his chair, his blue eyes staring lifelessly at her.

The room tilted and began to spin. She could not tear her eyes from the center of the maelstrom. He was dead. Her father was dead. They’d killed him. But it couldn’t be. She’d spoken to him only moments ago, touched his hand, tended to his wounds. Denial battled with the truth. Anger roared in her head. A fierce and urgent desire to attack and slash at these villains rushed through her even as the peril struck home. She was powerless against these killers, and frustration fueled her fury.

A man’s curt order cut into the moment. “Get her.”

They’d spotted her. Grace turned and raced down the hall. Taking the stairs, she tripped at the bottom and tumbled out into the alley. They were coming after her, their tread heavy on the steps.

Instantly, the battling street urchins were beside her, pulling her up.

“Hide me,” she cried out to the wide-eyed boys.

Without another word, they took her hands and began to run. They raced through a warren of alleys and boatyards, between grey stone buildings and rotting timber shanties. Grace was like a stolen trinket in the hands of experts. She could hear her pursuers behind them, shouting and cursing at the obstacles the boys were throwing up every chance they had.

The boys pulled at her, keeping her going as they bounded across rickety wooden bridges and into the shadows beneath low arches. Soon she began to tire. She felt the helplessness of a forest animal running pell-mell ahead of a raging fire. Still, they forged on, her young crew crying out to her, encouraging her. Stinking alleyways filled with refuse became passages to freedom, if only she could make herself run faster.

Smoke from cooking fires, derelict houses, and the backs of shops crowding her on every side became a watery tapestry of blurred colors and shapes and smells. Somewhere on the edges of thought, Grace wondered how her pounding heart continued to function. A hot, jagged blade of loss had lodged itself in her chest. Tears coursed down her face. Tears for her father and for the other men who lay dead around him.

But she pressed on, struggling to keep up with her gallant helpers.

As they followed a crumbling wall along a narrow canal, the shouts behind them rang out louder. The killers were almost upon them.

“This way.”

She hurried with them, up a set of slimy steps and into a sunless alley. They crossed a cobbled road and out onto a long pier lined with buildings. As the other boys ran on to draw off their pursuers, one pulled her into the low side doorway of a warehouse.

Grace looked around her. The place was filled with barrels and crates of all sizes. Planks were stacked along the walls, and a smoky fire burned at the far end of the barn-like structure. Just outside two large open doors, a loud and boisterous crowd of men stood and smoked. She could see a ship tied to the wharf beyond them.

The boy motioned to a large open crate on a cart. “Hide in here till they go.”

He pulled aside a tarp to reveal a huge basket. Without hesitation, she climbed in and sat.

“I’ll be back,” he murmured, covering her and sliding the top of the crate into place.

“Thank you,” she whispered in the dim light.

Her relief was short-lived. Running footsteps passed her hiding place. Calls and responses. Two men stopped beside her crate. The voices were muffled.

“Search everywhere,” the leader said in English. “We can’t let her get away.”

Grace held her breath, praying the boy had escaped.

Other voices reached her. She hoped it was the workers coming back into the warehouse.

Almost immediately, the sounds of hammering and sawing began. Cart wheels rolled heavily across the stone floor. In the distance, a crash and curses. A shout came from somewhere above her, and another answered.

The cart jostled as someone climbed onto it.

Terrified that she was about to be discovered, Grace stifled her cry for help. The killers could still be nearby.

“Seal it up.”

The concussion from the hammer nailing down the top of the crate stunned her for a moment. Then the reality of her situation seized her. The thought of dying in the hold of a ship at sea had to be a far worse fate than fighting for her life here in the open. Panicking, she struggled to push back the tarp.

“Wait. I’m here. Wait!”

2

Baronsford

The Borders, Scotland

Five Days Later

“My property must be protected, Greysteil, and I employ my bailiff and gamekeeper to do that.”

Hugh Pennington, Viscount Greysteil, Lord Justice of the Commissary Court in Edinburgh, stared in silence at the line of wooden toy blocks on his desk, trying to retain his composure. The burly, often overbearing Earl of Nithsdale wasn’t making the task any easier.

Hugh rarely attempted to resolve legal disputes at his family estate of Baronsford, but today was an exception. He could not allow an obvious wrong to linger on for a fortnight before a lower court had a chance to review the case. The thought of letting an innocent man sit one day longer in the local jail was too much for him.

The Earl of Nithsdale, newly arrived from London, had come immediately to Baronsford in response to Hugh’s invitation and then, seated across the desk, had filled the next ten minutes with all the fabrications his people had plied him with. Just as he would have done in court, Hugh listened dutifully.

In the walled gardens outside his study’s tall casement windows, a sporadic rain was falling on the late spring flowers. At the end of the gardens, where the meadows fell away to the lake, a fog had settled in, partially obscuring the trees of the orchards and the deer park beyond.

“What message would I send, to my employees and others, if I don’t support them now?” Nithsdale asked.

Hugh turned his gaze on the earl. “It comes down to this. Because of the actions of your gamekeeper, you are responsible for a man being wrongfully imprisoned for eleven days.”

“I . . . I . . . responsible?” the earl stammered.

“Mr. Darby was sleeping beneath a tree next to the road when your employees attacked and carried him off to the bailiff.”

“I was told he was trespassing.”

“He’d been denied a room in the inn of your own village.”

“No one even mentioned that,” the earl replied, his tone reflecting his surprise. “I was told that he was poaching.”

“According to Darby, he’d eaten nothing but some cold bread he carried with him. There’s no evidence of a poached bird or fish or deer.”

“For most of the year, I am in London. You understand that I must support my gamekeeper’s word over a vagrant.”

“Darby is not a vagrant,” Hugh said shortly. “He was only in the area because of an offer of a position by your neighbor, Lennox. He carries in his pocket at this very moment a letter of employment.”

“I know nothing of any letter.” The earl’s embarrassment showed in his reddened face.

“Darby showed the letter to the bailiff while your gamekeeper was still in the room.”

Nithsdale stood and walked to a window, and Hugh waited. The earl could sometimes be a pompous ass, but he wasn’t a villain.

“That bloody gamekeeper has done this before,” he said finally, returning to his chair. “Heavy-handed and rarely forthright when it comes to the details.”

“What do you plan to do about it?” Hugh asked.

Nithsdale spread his hands in a sign seeking reconciliation. “You know how difficult it is to find good workers. The man is not of the highest caliber, I grant you, but he served in my regiment on the Peninsula. Lost half his toes to the frost there.”

“We’re all struggling with the availability of workers.” Hugh picked up his pen and wrote instructions to the bailiff. “This is how we shall resolve the situation. Darby will be released immediately. And you will compensate him with a month of the gamekeeper’s wages.”

“He will be incensed.”

Hugh’s critical stare had the earl rethinking his response.

“That’s fair, I suppose,” the man grumbled.

“And in return, I shall not have your gamekeeper bound over for battery and wrongful imprisonment. I leave it to you how you want to handle your man.”

Nithsdale began to say something but stopped. A decision had been handed down, and no one in this region—regardless of their position in society, their education, their influence, or their friendship with the family—would dispute Viscount Greysteil’s dispensation of justice under the law.

“Not exactly the welcome that I was expecting on my return from London,” the earl said wryly, standing.

“Perhaps a quiet day of angling down on the Tweed will put everything right.”

“That is a capital idea, Greysteil. Fishing would be just the thing to put this business and the annoying bustle of London behind. Care to join me?”

“Thank you, but no.” Hugh stood and walked his neighbor to the door. “I need to go back to Edinburgh for a few days.”

He opened the door, but before Nithsdale could go out, a dark-haired woman appeared.

“Lady Josephine.” Nithsdale stepped back as Jo came into the study.

“M’lord. I heard that you and Lady Nithsdale had returned from London. I hope you found the entertainments of the Season enjoyable.”

“To be honest, I’m happy to be back in Scotland. But it’s always a challenge dragging my wife away from the social whirl. She would stay till the bitter end, as you know.”

“Well, I’ll be calling on her, so I’m sure I’ll hear all about it.”

“Indeed you will.” The earl threw a glance at Hugh. “I, however, have some very important business to attend to down at the Tweed. Good day to you both.”

With a bow, the earl went out, and Hugh went back to his desk. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Jo.”

As he sealed the letter for Darby’s release, his sister moved to the window and looked out at the rain. Hugh went to a side door, called for one of his clerks, and handed him the order with specific directions.

“This was all because Mr. Darby is of African descent, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, despite the law, bigotry lay at the heart of this case.”

Hugh joined her at the window. Long before he’d entertained any thought of becoming a judge, long before his time at Eton and Oxford and the years before his service as a cavalry officer during the French Wars, personal values regarding the rights of men held by him—and his four Pennington siblings—had been firmly fixed. If he didn’t stand up for men of different races, who would?

“And I see you still have your spies in the local jails,” Jo continued, her dark eyes dancing with pride. “Ensuring that justice is not tampered with.”

“Well, not trampled on, at any rate. And not only the local jails.”

“Who told you about Mr. Darby’s misfortune?”

Hugh shook his head. He never divulged the sources of his information, even to his family. He noticed the rain spotting Jo’s dress and changed the topic.

“Two days back from Hertfordshire and you’re already restless? Out walking in the weather, were you?”

“Not a walk. My supervision was required for a certain shipment that has just arrived. I wanted to make sure it was delivered to the old carriage barn and not carried into the ballroom.”

Hugh started for the door. “At last. I’ve been mad with worry that it would be lost.”

“I’m glad you admit there is madness involved here.” Jo hurried to keep up with him. “You do understand that I was sent up here with a dozen directives to stop this insane hobby of yours.”

“This is not madness, and it’s not a hobby,” Hugh reminded his sister. “Ballooning is a sport. A passion. It’s the future.”

“I believe the residents of Bedlam use much the same terminology for their interests.” She put a hand on his arm as they walked. “You must concede that there is an element of risk in this latest ‘sport’ of yours.”

“You said the same thing when I took up pugilism.”

“True, but this is worse,” she asserted. “Looking at your bloodied and battered face after each fight and wondering how long it would take you to come around after so many bare-knuckled blows to the head is not quite the same as planning your funeral.”

“You’re only a year older. That doesn’t make you my keeper.”

“Keeper, sister . . . call it what you will,” she said softly as they reached the door to the yard. “I wish you’d put a stop to this death wish of yours. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Flying reminds me that I’m alive, Jo.” He pressed his sister’s hand. “But for your sake, I promise to be diligent about my safety. And wait until you see this basket. It’s built by one of the best craftsmen in Antwerp.”

She scowled as Hugh accepted an umbrella from one of the footmen and pushed it into Jo’s hand.

“If anything happens to you,” she grumbled, “our parents will be holding me accountable, to be sure.”

Her dark eyes reflected her unease with the way he chose to spend his free time. He couldn’t lie, not to Jo. He wouldn’t deny to her that he invited danger. He welcomed the risk of death. And they both knew the reason. Eight years had passed and he still mourned. Of all his siblings, she understood most clearly all he’d been through. His past and the pain that accompanied the loss of those he loved.

But Hugh had no true death wish, despite the dangerous pastimes he enjoyed. With fighting, he lost himself in the speed and physicality of the sport. Flying provided a different kind of thrill. Soaring into the sky allowed him to leave behind the clutch and grind of daily life. It provided a sensation like no other. And far above the earth, he was reminded of his own insignificance in the face of the majestic splendor of nature.

“I’ll give you a letter absolving you of all responsibility before I go aloft again. Or you might come flying with me.”

“I think not,” she retorted. “If man were meant to fly . . .”

The two of them skirted the formal gardens and descended grey stone steps toward the stables and the carriage barns. Following the gravel path past the kennels, they reached the building he now used for his workshop.

Three years ago, he moved everything out of here, but he was beginning to think he’d need to be constructing a larger space to house his equipment. The brick floor was nearly filled with crates of folded silk cloth, casks of linseed oil, and larger barrels of sulfuric acid and metal fillings. Coils of rope and netting, and the draping silk balloon itself, hung from the overhead beams.

In one corner a badly damaged basket sat propped up on blocks of wood, the casualty of a rough landing on a gusty day last autumn. Dragged across field, wall, and hedgerow for half a mile, Hugh had emerged unscathed, but for a few scratches and bruises. But the basket hadn’t fared so well. It was broken up beyond repair, unfortunately serving as a worrisome reminder to Jo and their parents. Hugh told himself he had to have it removed.

Looking the shipping crate over for damage and seeing none, he retrieved an iron pry bar from a workbench. Jo was standing inside the doors, eyeing the box doubtfully from a safe distance.

“Come closer. It won’t bite.”

“Not a chance. From the smell of that thing, a person would think you’re importing cadavers. Have you also taken up being a Resurrectionist as a hobby?”

He patted the crate affectionately. “This sweet thing has been sitting in the bowels of a ship from Antwerp. You know what the hold of a ship smells like?”

“Actually, I don’t.” She held a handkerchief to her nose and drew closer. “But I think you’re correct with the reference to ‘bowels.’”

Hugh took the first nail out. “Well, stand back, since you’ve become so prissy. Though I recall a younger version of you leading the rest of us through bogs and marshes that smelled no better.”

“Of course! But as I recall, we had frogs and turtles and the occasional dragon that needed hunting,” she replied with a smile. “Very well. Open it and let’s see this treasure of yours.”

Prying off the top took him only a moment. Throwing it to the side, he pulled back the tarp that covered the basket and then stared curiously at the dark green rags bundled at the bottom.

Leaning in, Hugh’s enthusiasm evaporated as a horrid realization settled in. This was no pile of old clothing. A shock of blond hair. A shoe. A hand. The body of a dead woman lay curled up in the gondola.

“Bloody hell.”

“What is it?” Immediately, Jo was at his side. “Good God!”

Hugh climbed in and crouched beside the body. He took her hand. She was cold to the touch. His heart sank. The crate had been shipped from Antwerp. To be trapped for so many days with no water, no food, in the cold and damp of the ship’s hold. He had no idea who this woman was or how she came to be in here.

The thought struck him. Perhaps it wasn’t an inadvertent act. Perhaps she was murdered and her body had been dumped into the crate.

Dismay and alarm clawed at him as he pushed away the matted ringlets of golden hair. She was young. He lifted her chin. The body had none of the stiffness of postmortem. He stared at her lips. He may have imagined it but they seemed to have moved.

“Bright . . .” The whisper was a mere rustle of leaves in a breeze.

The fingers jerked and came to life, clutching at his hand.

“She’s not dead,” he called to Jo, relieved. “Send for the doctor. I’ll take her to the house.”

His sister ran out, calling for help, and he lifted the woman. She emitted a low groan. Her limbs had been locked in the same cramped position for so many days. Hugh propped her over the side of the gondola.

“Stay with me,” he encouraged. “Talk to me.”

Holding the woman in place, he clambered from the basket and then gently lifted her out, cradling her in his arms. She weighed next to nothing.

As they went out into the rain, he feared she was about to die. The exertion of trying to breathe showed on her face. He’d seen this on the battlefield. The final effort before death.

Starting up the path, he stumbled, not realizing the woman’s skirts were dragging on the ground. He staggered but caught himself before they went down. Her head lolled against his chest, her face grey and mask-like. She appeared to be slipping away. It would be a shame that she’d survived the crossing only to perish now.

A dagger point of anger pierced Hugh’s brain as he recalled another dismal day when he’d lifted two other bodies, wrapped in burial shrouds, from a wooden box.

“Talk to me,” he ordered. “Say something.”

As he made his way up the hill toward the house, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky above Baronsford. Thunder shook the ground and the sky opened, unleashing fierce torrents of rain on them.

His wife. His son. Hugh hadn’t been there for them. They’d died as he and the British army were being chased by the French across Spain. He’d been trying to save his men’s lives, not knowing that those most precious to him were suffering.

“You’ve survived a horrifying ordeal. Give me the chance to save you.”

The woman struggled weakly in Hugh’s arms, and her head tipped back. He watched as her lips parted, welcoming the wetness of the falling rain.

“We’re almost there.”

“Bright . . .” she murmured.

He looked into her face and saw she was trying hard to open her eyes.

“Yes, brighter than that crate,” he said, encouraged by her effort. Any movement, however small, gave him hope. “And you’ve been in there for Lord knows how long.”

Her breaths were shallow, and the wheezing was not heartening. In spite of it, she was trying to talk.

“Oh mother, adieu forever . . .”

A gust of wind swept in from the west, and raindrops became stinging barbs on his face.

Adieu forever. The words triggered another memory. The wind at Corunna was blowing into their faces when the lines of French infantry opened fire. So many young men standing their ground never had the chance to come back to their mothers, their wives, and their children.

“I am now on my dying bed . . .”

Her murmurs rose like a prayer. When was it that he’d forgotten how to pray? Was it on the cold, hard march after the standoff at Astorga? How many days had he sent prayers skyward, only to have the cruel heavens above turn a deaf ear to his entreaties?

A cough rumbled deep in her chest, and the sky followed suit. Thunder rolled across the fields and enveloped them.

“If I had lived . . . I’d have been brave . . .”

The haughty words of untried youth. And what followed for so many but death. Dying in the first assault, before they could show their courage.

A strong gust battered them with rain, and Hugh stopped for a moment, turning to shield her with his body.

“That you are alive now is a miracle. You are a tenacious woman,” he whispered. “And tenacity requires courage.”

A flash and an immediate crack of thunder startled Hugh.

“I droop . . . my youthful head . . .”

He resumed the steady climb toward the house. They were completely soaked.

“Our bones do moulder . . .”

She was talking about war. That blasted war. Bones were mouldering in fields and graveyards across the continent. Every man, woman, and child from Moscow to Lisbon had been affected by it. Everyone.

“Weeping willows over us grow . . .”

A grove of willows had stood at Waterloo. The trees, so graceful before, were reduced to splinters by a Prussian cannon barrage. He remembered the cries of dying soldiers amid the wreckage.

“Near by . . .”

“What’s nearby?” he asked, focusing his attention on her faint words. Perhaps she was trying to tell him who she was or how she’d been trapped.

“The swelling ocean . . .”

“Yes. You’ve crossed the sea,” he encouraged. He stepped into a rut filled with muddy water, but he kept his feet under him. “Tell me more. Talk to me.”

“One morning . . .”

“One morning? Tell me what happened.”

He heard a commotion down the hill behind him and turned to catch a glimpse of one of his grooms riding off at breakneck speed toward the village. Finally.

“In the month of June . . .”

“It’s still May, but June is coming,” he said. He would say anything to have her continue. As long as she was talking, she was alive.

“While feathered warbling songsters . . .”

Her eyes remained closed, but Hugh recognized what she’d done. She’d unearthed memories long buried. He rarely spoke of the war. He tried not to even think of it, but the nightmares remained.

He struggled to stay in the present and focus on her. He needed to make sense of what she was saying.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Their charming notes.” She was determined to continue, regardless of her difficulty breathing.

Her voice trailed off into a cough deep in her chest. When it subsided, blue eyes squinted up at him. He looked back at the rain-darkened hair, at the high cheekbones and straight nose.

“What is it? What are you trying to say?”

“Bright . . .”

Another bolt of lightning flashed in the direction of the river and he looked at the house looming up ahead. They’d nearly reached the east wing. A footman appeared around a bend, running toward them and carrying an umbrella.

“We need to settle you into a bed. My sister will get you the care⁠—”

“The bonny Bunch of Roses, O.”

Understanding came with the ensuing clap of thunder.

“Blast me if that doesn’t sound like a poem. You can’t even breathe, lass, but you’re reciting a poem.”

Her chin lifted slightly. The eyes once again tried to focus on his face. She struggled to say something under her breath. He couldn’t make out the words. When he shook his head, she repeated it.

“A ballad,” she whispered.

“Oh. My apologies. A ballad.”

Her eyes had again closed. Had she really just corrected him?

A half-dozen footmen and maids were waiting for them at a service door. His sister pushed through them.

“I have her. Make way,” Hugh ordered, sailing through the entry.

“Go straight up the stairs,” Jo told him.

Mrs. Henson, the housekeeper, appeared at the top. “We’ve opened the first bedchamber, m’lord.”

Servants bustled around them while others ran ahead.

The woman coughed—a dreadfully painful sound—and gasped to draw air. A fear ran through him that he’d been right. She’d used all her strength to recite a blasted ballad.

A footman held open a door. As Hugh carried her through the sitting room into a bedroom beyond, servants pulled back covers. He laid her down on the bed.

As Jo gently patted her face dry, the young woman coughed again, tried to breathe, and her lips moved.

“The rest of the ballad?” he asked. He brought his ear close to her lips. A faint sound emerged.

“Where . . . am I?”

Hugh drew back and looked into the blue eyes trying to bring him into focus.

“Scotland,” he said. “You’re safe.”

She lifted a hand, moved stiffly, and tried to rise. But her limbs hadn’t the strength, and her head sank back onto the pillow.

The eyes began to drift shut, but she started to whisper again.

He stared at her lips and moved closer.

“Send me back.”

3

Grace had no idea how long she’d been wandering in the fog. She didn’t know what lay ahead. Tall trees looming overhead shut out all light. Tangled undergrowth dragged at her shackled feet. Eyes of predators fixed on her from the shadows. Too exhausted to care, she sank to the ground. The smell of earth and pine filled her senses.

Confusion took hold of her. Her stomach clenched as the green world around her began to spin. Voices echoed from a distance. Around her, the forest dissolved, falling away like a painted canvas. She was not in a forest, but rather in a bedchamber. The words became distinct.

“Her lungs have been affected, m’lord. But from what you tell me, that’s only to be expected.”

Grace peered at the man sitting on the bed beside her. Thick spectacles sat in a bed of bushy white brows atop a red, pock-marked nose. The ruddy face bore the deeply etched lines of advanced years.

She tried to draw a breath but couldn’t. Why didn’t they move the rock that was sitting on her chest?

She was dying. She’d been imprisoned in that basket. Sealed up alive in that tomb of wicker and wood. Lowered into the grave of some ship’s hold. Her cries had gone unanswered until finally she had no more will to call out, no more strength to fight against the feelings of desperation and anguish. The hatches were sealed, the darkness was complete, and time lost all meaning. How many days or weeks she’d lain in that basket, she didn’t know. Thirst and hunger tore at her insides for a while, but those afflictions too disappeared, only to be replaced by a vague desire for the end to come.

But that silent release was still far off, and painful thoughts of her dear father came back over and over. Finally, to combat the madness that she was certain would come, her mind conjured another world. Pages of books lit the darkness. Lines of poems and ballads appeared before her eyes. Everything she’d ever read came back to her now.

Her father called it her “talent.” Grace remembered everything: names, faces, numbers, and more. Her friends saw it as entertainment. They tested her and laughed as she recited chapters of books she’d read through only once. She could name the position of any card after having the deck displayed for only a moment. Some who knew of her talent referred to her as an oddity. A French scholar had once insisted on studying her. But her father would not allow it, and she was grateful for his intervention.

On that ship, locked in what she assumed would be her coffin, Grace had begun to recite aloud the words locked in her memory. Line after line, poem after poem, Irish ballad and French, textbook and novel—each one reminding her that she was still alive.

But her voice had eventually grown quieter until only the pounding sound of the sea remained, the creaking of wood, and the sloshing of water below. Finally, even those sounds disappeared and silence claimed the darkness.

“I’d be sorely remiss in offering any words of optimism,” the old man said. His face moved out of her line of sight. “I can bleed her, m’lord, but I don’t know what good it’ll do her.”

No blood. Grace had seen too much of it in Antwerp. The blackening pool around the valet. The deep red stain on her father’s chest. While she’d been confined in the crate, her mind had returned to those moments. Awake or asleep, it didn’t make a difference. She kept seeing the dead. Even now Grace’s eyes burned, but she doubted she had a tear left to shed.

“No,” another man replied. “No letting of her blood. She’s not strong enough.”

She’d heard that voice before. The same deep and commanding tone. The man who’d lifted her out of that wicker tomb and carried her through the rain. She’d recited an Irish ballad for him and confused him with her words.

Safe, he’d said so confidently, placing her in the bed.

If he only knew how wrong he was.

Grace tried to focus on the tall, dark-haired blur hovering in the distance. Broad shoulders encased in a black coat dominated the wall beyond. She could hardly make out his features, but she heard the concern in his tone.

She tried to breathe again and struggled. Coughing wracked her body, and a searing pain ripped through her chest. Where was death now? Where was her release? Hadn’t she suffered enough?

When the spasms subsided a little, someone lifted her head from the pillow and spooned bitter medicine between her lips. Grace choked on it, and her body responded violently. She gasped in vain for air, and then the room went black around her once again.

* * *

Hugh had seen enough death. He didn’t want to witness it now.

Watching this woman gasp for breath brought back again the haunting memories of his loved ones, dying so far from home. She’d been murmuring lines from a ballad. He didn’t know the work, but it sounded like the farewell of a soldier dying on the battlefield.

Oh mother, adieu forever . . .

I am now on my dying bed . . .

If I had lived I’d have been brave . . .

I droop my youthful head . . .

Our bones do moulder . . .

Weeping-willows o’er us grow . . .

Hugh battled to suppress, for the thousandth time, his bitter anger at the French tyrant and his bloody war.

He stared at the woman, wondering who was missing her now. Like the mother in the poem, who was waiting for her, anguishing over what had become of her, not knowing if she was alive or dead?

Hugh hadn’t even known his wife and son were suffering until it was too late. Amelia had brought their precious child across the water to Spain without sending word to him. As Hugh and his light cavalry fought their way across Spain, she was waiting for him in Vigo. While he and his men protected the flank of the British Army on that horrible retreat through snow and freezing rain, Amelia and his three-year-old boy were dying of camp fever, wracked with pain, gasping for air, and clinging desperately to life. But it was no use. They died there in the seaside village near Corunna with no one to care for them, no family to comfort them, in the squalor of that godforsaken place, cut off from help and overcome with pestilence.

And he’d not been there when they needed him.

Hugh cursed the French again, as he had a million times. Later, in the fields of France and Belgium, he’d made them bleed for it, even as they continued to cut down his comrades around him. So many times he’d thrown himself into the thickest fray of battle, never caring if he lived or died. How many times had he wished he had died?

The woman drifted into a restless sleep, if that’s what it was. If she died now, he didn’t want to see it.

Hugh strode out of the room and stopped. Looking down the hallway at the long-unused rooms of this wing, he felt the pain coursing through him with the same fierceness it had the day he learned of his wife and son’s deaths. This part of the east wing had once been a place of joy for him. No longer. He still came up here, despite the pain it brought him. He had to. It was all he had left of them.

He looked back at the door where the woman lay, gamely struggling to breathe. She was a fighter, to be sure. But he couldn’t fathom how she’d come to be in that blasted crate.

He descended the stairs and went out into the yard. A light rain was still falling, though the lightning and rumbling thunder had long ago moved off to the east.

He followed the drive down past the stables to the carriage barn and went in.

Staring at the open crate, Hugh tried to calculate how long she must have been trapped in there. The basket was shipped from Antwerp. Someone had nailed the box shut. How was it possible that she would go unnoticed, unless she had intentionally hidden in there? She could have been drugged or knocked out and secreted in the basket. If that were the case, she’d been left in there intentionally to die. Or perhaps someone else had failed to intercept the shipment and let her out before she’d left Antwerp. The possibilities were numerous, but none of them left him feeling any easier about it.

Hugh inspected the crate. Nothing out of the ordinary struck him. Looking into the balloon gondola, he considered the torment of being confined in such a space. It was amazing that she’d survived at all.

Something caught his eye at the bottom of the basket. Several coins. Climbing in, he picked them up and held them to the light.

American coins.

4

For over four decades now, management of Baronsford had resided in Walter Truscott’s capable hands. A cousin to Hugh’s father, Truscott was widely respected as the reason the Penningtons’ estate served as a model of care and accomplishment in this corner of Scotland.

Hugh was kept abreast of everything, but his position in the judiciary kept him busy. So Truscott oversaw the work of the steward and the farm managers, and made all operational decisions, whether the issue pertained to the home farm or the tenantry. No cottage was built or mill repaired without his authorization. No livestock was bought or sold, and no field was plowed without his knowledge. No farmhand was hired or fired without his final approval.

It had been Truscott’s suggestion to offer a job to Darby after he wrongly spent time in the local jail. Having made arrangements with the Lennox steward, Walter had offered the blacksmith a position at Baronsford the morning after being released.

Upon returning to Baronsford after two days in Edinburgh, Hugh found Darby had taken them up on the offer. Standing by a stable door, Truscott gestured toward the nearby smithy.

“Hard worker, intelligent, and capable in his trade,” Truscott told him. “He’ll be an asset for us.”

“You never guess wrong, Walter.” Hugh handed his horse over to one of the grooms. “Living arrangements for him?”

“Taken care of.”

The French Wars and migration by many workers to cities like Edinburgh over the past two decades had diminished the numbers of cotters who worked and farmed around Baronsford, as well as the population of Melrose Village. More and more Irish vagrants were showing up in the area, but many cottages sat empty.

“He’s also requested a few moments of your time,” Truscott said. “Says it’s important that he speak with you. I thought it might be less intimidating for him if you heard what he had to say out here, rather than in your study.”

Hugh was impatient to talk to Jo about their mystery patient. He assumed she was still alive. He’d received no word to the contrary while he was in Edinburgh.

A few moments wouldn’t make a difference. Leaving Truscott behind, he strode to the open doors of the smithy. The tall man was working alongside a soot-covered helper.

“You wished to speak with me, Mr. Darby?”

Seeing him, the blacksmith hung up his leather apron and came out. Hugh motioned toward the kennels and they moved across to the low building. Whatever he had to say, the man might as well have some privacy doing it. A dozen small hounds came across the fenced-in enclosure, tails wagging.

“First off, I wanted to thank you, m’lord.” The blacksmith took off his cap, clutching it in two hands. “I know I’d still be rotting in that jail if not for you.”

“No need to thank me. I like to think we do a decent job of dispensing the law in this region. But what happened to you was wrong.”

“That’s my life, m’lord. I was born and raised in the East End of London. A tough place,” he added. “Coming north for this job, I was hoping for a change.”

“I can assure you that you’ll be treated fairly at Baronsford and paid according to your worth. Mr. Truscott is a fair man.”

“To be sure, I already see that.”

The cap continued to twist in his large fists. Hugh had spent enough years on the bench to know when a man was building his courage to say more. He leaned over the fence and petted the dogs.

“I’m grateful for your generosity, m’lord. I’ve met with only kindness from everyone since I arrived yesterday. But . . .” He paused, his gaze scouring the ground between them. “I wish to bring no trouble to your door. You been kind to me, so I’d like to be square with you. Your neighbor who was to employ me didn’t know everything about this. I’m no murderer or a thief, but there are folk who look down on⁠—”

“I’m aware of your previous arrest in London, Mr. Darby,” Hugh said, facing him. “After the Spa Fields riots last December, you spent twenty-six days in jail before being released. No charge was brought against you.”