Elizabeth Mayne - Man Of The Mist

As luck would have it, James Murray, who was three years older than Evan and also studying at Cambridge, came to fetch his sister. He recognized Evan at once, and clapped him on the back with a high regard that went a little ways in reducing the glares coming from the duke’s henchmen.

As the crowd at the entrance had dwindled, the matter of Elizabeth’s missing ticket was easily covered. She wasn’t just a daughter of the highest-ranking Scottish noble attending the assembly. Miss Nicky Murray of Mansfield, the patroness of Bell’s Wynd, was Elizabeth’s great-aunt.

Disaster was thus averted, and Elizabeth reluctantly released her hold upon Evan, to be escorted by James back to her plethora of chaperones.

Cut loose and on his own again, Evan found Willie in the crush and introduced him around. There was no lack of available dance partners for the brisk reels and gay flings. Evan actually enjoyed the ceremony of bringing a pretty young lady forward to Aunt Nicky, who was enthroned on her dais, and securing a polite nod of her head at each of his choices.

During the interludes, he took time to visit with his rediscovered friend in the company of the numerous spinster aunts who acted as chaperones. Lady Elizabeth wasn’t enjoying the assembly. What girl would when she wasn’t allowed to dance?

Evan’s heart went out to the lass over that egregious disappointment. He wasn’t so old that he couldn’t remember what it was like to sit on the side at a gathering and be unable to enjoy it because of the strict rules of etiquette held by their class.

Worse, he was most confused by his own physical reaction to her. He loved Izzy, in the loyal, altruistic way he loved all his friends and kinsmen.

Their six years of correspondence, following two years in the same schoolroom together, had made him feel closer to her than he did to his own sister. None of his feelings for Elizabeth tonight were at all brotherly. He couldn’t help thinking that perhaps they never had been.

He’d always taken on the role of Izzy’s protector in the schoolroom. It was so easy to slip back into that comfortable way of thinking of her as somehow weaker than he and needing a champion. But Elizabeth was simply too young to stir in him the feelings of deep lust, desire and passion that alluring older women did. Despite his looks, Evan was painfully shy when it came to making advances to women. He couldn’t have borne it if he was rejected, or failed to perform as expected by an older, experienced woman.

Knowing that, and thinking with a head that should have been rational enough to override the heavy ache in his cods, why then did he ask the too-young Elizabeth to dance without Aunt Nicky’s permission?

And God only knew why Elizabeth threw caution and decorum to the winds and agreed.

Never, in all of his days, could Evan have predicted that one impetuous dance, one gay and happy highland reel, was to be the beginning of all his heartache and troubles.

Chapter One

London

January 9, 1808

The ink of wintry midnight cloaked the nursery in the Duke of Atholl’s London town house. Auld Krissy Buchanan couldn’t see a thing. Yet what she heard in the heavy darkness made her eyes widen with alarm. She scrambled out of bed, snatched up her robe and tiptoed to her mistress’s adjoining room, taking care not to wake young Robbie as she opened and closed the adjoining door.

The alarming clattering sound came again, louder and stronger in the sleeping lady’s bedchamber. “Milady,” Krissy whispered. “Wake up! Do you not hear that noise?”

“Noise, Krissy?” From the deep cocoon of her tester bed, Lady Elizabeth Murray mumbled in a husky, caught-in-a-dream voice. “What noise?”

“Lady Elizabeth!” Krissy’s harsh whisper rose a shrill notch. “Summat’s breaking into yer father’s hoose!”

“Krissy? What did you say?” Wide awake now, Elizabeth sat bolt upright, turning to the corner windows, seeking the source of that most peculiar and very distinct noise.

It came again, three — no, four — quick little smacks on the window glass. Krissy gasped, unable to believe that the frightening sounds came from the window glazing. There were no balconies on the third floor, where the duke of Atholl’s womenfolk were quartered. How could anyone be out there?

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in alarm. “I heard that! What is it, Krissy?”

“A bloody London cutthroat, that’s what!” Krissy answered promptly. She snatched her warmest tartan robe closed and stoutly tied the sash before Lady Elizabeth’s feet touched the cold floor.

“We’ll just see about that!” Elizabeth insisted, rattled, but not panicked. After all, they were hardly alone. Her father wasn’t in residence, but the dowager duchess and her entire staff were. Elizabeth glanced at the clock on her nightstand as she lit a lamp. Four o’clock in the morning. Everyone would be sound asleep!

“Summat’s outside, banging on the window glass.” Krissy armed herself with the iron poker from the hearth. “’Tis your lucky day I’m here to protect you. Miss Nicky gave me fair warning about the tricks and troubles of dealing with the blasted Sassenachs. I kin defend the clan’s honor, I kin.”

Elizabeth withheld comment as she deftly fastened her robe at her waist. Auld Krissy was clearly frightened, else she would have remembered that little harm could come to any resident of 19 Grosvenor Mews. Without further discussion, Lady Elizabeth hurried to her corner bay windows.

One overlooked the pleasant park fronting Grosvenor Square. The other gave a not-so-charming view of the gables and slate tile roofing of Lord Mansfield’s house next door. There was nothing remarkable to be seen on the roof.

Elizabeth opened the drapes and cautiously parted the sheers on the bay window facing the street. London’s ever-present deep winter fog enveloped the park and obscured the stately avenue. She could pick out very few landmarks in the thick, heavy mist. “All I can see is a carriage light on a hackney turning at the corner.”

Another shower of minuscule pebbles pattered against the glass. Krissy jumped and came within inches of putting the poker through the glass panes. “Blood and fury! Will the demmed bounders scale the walls next?”

“Whisht, Krissy!” Elizabeth warned immediately. “Don’t wake Robbie.”

“Yes, mum,” Krissy said contritely.

Elizabeth did what any sensible young woman safely ensconced on the third floor of her father’s abode should do; she disarmed her fractious abigail, urging her to more dignified silence, and raised the window sash. Then both she and Krissy leaned their cap-covered heads out the window to appraise the scene on the street below. After all, Elizabeth thought, twenty-and-a-half isn’t so abysmally mature that I can’t show a minimum of curiosity.

“Wait, mum.” Krissy laid a trembling hand on Elizabeth’s sleeve. “Do ya ken who they are?”

At first glance, Elizabeth couldn’t rightly say that she did. Thick and heavy fog curled against the walls of the house and lifted up to dampen her chin and cheeks. The mists swirled, stirred by a soft gust of wind, to reveal three men huddled on the doorstep, under the novel haze of a pair of gas-fueled coach lights. The thick fog softened all details of their identity.

“Och, I count three of ’em,” Krissy’s brogue overlaid the mist. “What kin they want at this hour?”

“Good question,” Elizabeth replied suspiciously. Anyone with a shred of decency would have properly rung the bell and summoned Keyes, regardless of the urgency or the hour. That was the way things were done in the duke of Atholl’s house. “Suppose I best find out.”

Leaning farther over the sill, Elizabeth called out in a chilly voice, to let the intruders know she considered it outrageous form to throw stones at her windows. “Who are you and what do you want?”

The largest of the trio looked up, cupped his hands to his mouth and tilted his face toward the light gleaming on the near side of the entrance door. His voice echoed peculiarly, dampened and magnified by the fog.

“Ha! I’ll be bound! So Tullie was right. You are to town. Get up, lass! Come down here and unlock the door. Be quick about it, Izzy!”

“Izzy!” Elizabeth repeated his last word in a harsh whisper, instantly drawing back inside the window. Her heart skipped a beat, then jumped to an escalated cadence. Only one ne’er-do-well in the entire British Isles had ever dared to call her by that dreadful remnant from the nursery in public. Evan MacGregor!

“Eh?” Krissy cupped her hand to her ear, leaning her white face closer to Elizabeth’s. “What did he say? Who is it?”

Elizabeth ignored the question as she swallowed and sought her courage. She laid trembling hands on the damp windowsill to steady herself, leaning out once more. This time, when she spoke, her voice rang with the cool disdain of the bred-in-the-bone aristocrat. “Tell me one good reason why I should unlock the door of my house for the likes of you, Evan MacGregor!”

“What?” Krissy gasped, and laid her hand over her heart.

“Don’t argue with me, Elizabeth Murray! Get down here!” Evan stepped onto the highest step, deliberately placing himself in the circle of lamplight. She caught a glimpse of her brother’s red hair as Evan raised his arm in a furious gesture. “Unless you prefer that I heave Tullibardine’s bloody body in the bin out back. Make up your mind quick! The marquess has been shot, and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. As bad as he’s wounded, he won’t last long, left out in this weather.”

“Shot?” Elizabeth cried. She backed out of the window so quickly she banged her head on the sash. So did Krissy.

“Shot?” Krissy parroted. “I dinna see Tullibardine.”

Elizabeth had. Her brother, John Murray, the marquess of Tullibardine, had become recognizable the moment Evan MacGregor moved away from him. Tullie slumped heavily against the support of the third man.

“What in the name of creation is going on in here? Are you trying to wake every soul in the house?” Amalia Murray demanded as she imperiously swept inside her younger sister’s chamber. “Elizabeth, who have you been shouting at on the street? Do you realize what time it is?”

“Hang the time!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she bolted past her sister. “Tullie’s been shot! Krissy, make certain Robbie’s sleep has not been disturbed, then come downstairs at once to help me.”

“What?” Amalia gasped. She stood stock-still, stunned, as Elizabeth ran past her to the staircase.

“What do you mean, Tullie’s been shot?” Amalia snatched up her hems, following. “Oh, no! Dear God, no! Elizabeth, come back and tell me it isn’t true!”

Elizabeth wasted no time getting down to the entrance foyer. But at the doorway her hands turned inept and clumsy, fumbling with the locks. Amalia caught up to her as Elizabeth swung the door wide open to the three men huddled on the step in the bone-chilling mist.

“What has happened?” Amalia exclaimed.

Elizabeth stood frozen on the doorsill, locked in a horror that went deeper than any life-threatening alarm raised for her brother. Some other portion of her mind recognized the grey breeks and scarlet jacket of a Highland volunteer cloaking Evan’s tall body. Her eyes came in full contact with his, and all sense of time and reality ended.

The panic surging into her veins wasn’t for the condition of her oldest brother. An unvoiced scream strangled underneath the tight compression of the fingers sealing her lips.

Evan! God help her, Evan sported the well-cut jacket of an officer of Graham’s Grey Breeks. He towered over Tullie, her brother. The Highlander’s jaw was set, his mouth a grim, dark and austere line that caught the night’s deepest shadows. His eyes locked with Elizabeth’s. She ceased breathing and thinking, and stood blocking the door.