He grinned at her in a way that made her take a step backward. “They make babies, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I mean, don’t the men and women talk to one another? At home—”
“Darling, this isn’t America. You’re in Scotland now, and things are different.” He gave a great yawn.
“Did you buy your horses?”
“Mmmmm.” He gave another yawn. “I must get to bed. See you in the morning, darling.”
“At breakfast?” she said, but Harry didn’t notice the sarcasm in her voice.
“Yes, at breakfast. Good night.”
Chapter Four
Claire looked at the watch pinned to her breast and stamped her foot in annoyance. She had done it again. For the second time in four days she had missed luncheon. It was now only ten minutes after one o’clock, but she knew from experience that she wouldn’t be seated after the duke was. She had tried to talk to Harry, to ask him why his mother made all the rules when he was the important one in the family, but Harry’d only said, “That’s the way it is. That’s the way things have always been.”
Now she knew she had two choices: she could go back to her room hungry or she could find her sister and pay her twenty-five dollars to fetch her a sandwich. (The brat’s fees had gone up.)
But Claire didn’t want to do either of those things. She would try to train herself to do without luncheon, and tea if necessary, to get some time to do what she wanted to do. Of course it might help if she had any idea what she wanted to do. She had spent three days exploring the center section of the house, looking at the pictures, mentally figuring out what needed repair and how much it was going to cost after she and Harry were married. She had spent another two days walking about the gardens. She so desperately wanted to get into the library that one night she had slipped downstairs with the intention of sneaking into the room when no one was there. But there was an old man in the room even at that hour. Claire gave a little gasp and fled back up the stairs.
Now, hungry from her long walk and knowing it was going to be hours before her next meal, and, too, knowing how the other women gave her disapproving looks when she ravenously gobbled down sandwiches and cakes at tea, she kicked at the outside wall of the house. When that didn’t help, she sat down on a little bench, her head in her hands, and for the thousandth time felt like giving way to tears.
But it was while she had her head down that she saw what looked like an opening in the bushes. Her curiosity overriding her hunger, she got up to examine the space. There was indeed a path through the greenery that surrounded the west wing of the house. She made her way through the shrubbery. Within a few feet she came to a door that was completely hidden by the bushes. She had tried every door both inside and out to this wing and had found all of them to be locked, but she knew before she touched this door that it would be unlocked. It was not only unlocked but the hinges had been recently oiled; the door opened easily.
She stepped into the darkened interior and felt as though she’d stepped back in time. Before her rose a high, two-story stone room that she knew without being told was part of a castle. There were rotten tapestries hanging from the walls, and at one end was a fireplace meant to roast whole head of cattle. Scattered about the room were broken chairs and benches and tables. There was a heap of what looked to be armor and weapons in one corner.
As her eyes adjusted, she walked about the cold room, cold as only stone that hadn’t been heated for a century or so could be, and looked at the objects. She ran into several cobwebs, but they didn’t bother her since she was much more interested in what she was seeing.
Leading out of the big room were two sets of spiral stone stairs, and she started up one of them. The stones were worn away from thousands of feet traveling up and down the stairs; they were slippery with damp and cold.
On the second floor she explored several rooms. Some of them still contained bits of furniture. She picked up a heavy sword from the floor and carried it to the light of the single window in the room. Several panes of the old semitransparent glass were gone, and there were bats in the room. She examined the sword carefully and once again she heard the bagpipes in her head. What she had experienced so far at Bramley was completely removed from what she had imagined Scotland to be like, but, here, holding this sword, she began to feel some of what she had expected.
Still carrying the sword, she went up another floor and walked into a large room. Light streamed into the room, and as she looked at the tattered shreds of fabric hanging from the walls, she could imagine what this room had once been—and what it could be again.
She hugged her arms about her, rubbing them against the cold, and whirled about. “After I’m married I shall restore this place,” she said aloud. “I shall make these apartments ours and they shall be as glorious as they once were. I shall hang tartan cloth on the walls. I’ll have the tapestries repaired. I’ll—”
She didn’t say any more because she stepped on a rotten board and the floor gave way under her, the sword flying across the room. She screamed as she went down, but she had sense enough to throw her arms out wide so she didn’t go all the way through and fall to the stones of the floor below. She yelled once for help but then stopped. Who was going to hear her through several feet of stone walls? Who was going to find her? No one seemed to care when she didn’t show up for meals. Would it be days before she was missed?
“Well, well.”
She looked up to see the man she’d met before, the man who called himself Trevelyan, standing in the doorway. Immediately, all the emotions she’d felt when she first met him came back to her. She didn’t like the way he was standing, leaning against the doorway in an insolent way; she didn’t like the expression on his scarred face, a face that seemed to be younger than she’d remembered.
“I heard something down here, but I thought it was rats. Looks as though it’s just one big rat.”
“Do you think you could possibly make nasty comments later and help me out of this now?” And when I get out, I shall use the sword on you, she thought.
“You look like you’re doing all right. Remember, I’m a decrepit old man. I might have a heart attack if I helped you. Maybe I’d better get your big strong duke.”
She was trying to find something to grab on to so she could pull herself up, but there was nothing. “Harry has gone to buy horses.”
“Does that rather a lot, doesn’t he?”
“He’s going to race them.” She stopped floundering and looked up at him. “This is becoming painful. Could you please help me?”
Trevelyan took a few steps toward her, bent, put his hands under her arms, and easily lifted her out of the hole. For a moment she stood very, very near him, not touching him, but close enough to feel his breath on her face. When he looked down at her, her heart began to pound. Anger was what was causing the pounding, she thought, but the pounding didn’t feel exactly like anger. He gave her a little smile, as though he had found out something that he’d wanted to know, then turned and walked awa
y.