Elizabeth Mayne - Man Of The Mist

“God save us!” Amalia whispered a fearful prayer behind Elizabeth. “John, what have you done?”

Elizabeth’s nostrils flared as the mist rolled past Evan and washed her burning cheeks. With it came the tang of burnt whiskey mingled with odors off the streets, horses, sweat, blood and dank wool.

“Move, Izzy!” Evan commanded, in a voice grown deeper over long years. It touched her center, glazing her soul like the mists that swept around him and sank quickly to her darkest primordial core. Evan’s eyes remained inscrutable, sharp and hard. The mist shrouded him as he came ominously closer, her brother’s arm clamped across his wide shoulders. Stupidly, Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor, unable to make any part of her body move under her own volition.

“I said move, lass!” One hand snaked out, touching the silk covering her waist. It flattened and pressed intimately into yielding flesh, urging her backward, out of his way.

“Elizabeth!” Amalia’s voice roughened with a fine edge of fright. She caught Elizabeth’s arm, yanking her off the threshold, out of the way of the Highlanders bearing her brother John, the marquess of Tullibardine, into his father’s house.

Glowing lamps in the foyer illuminated the gap in John’s greatcoat. Elizabeth partially roused from the dazzled dream in which she was trapped and dragged her eyes from Evan to stare in mute horror at the wash of scarlet staining the marquess’s rumpled linen and cravat. Amalia gasped out loud.

Shaking herself free of the shock of Evan MacGregor’s return, Elizabeth gulped. “I’ll fetch Dr. Morgan.”

MacGregor caught her arm as Elizabeth reached for the cord to summon the servants, commanding, “No doctors, and no servants, Izzy. Corporal Butter can tend to the marquess’s injury. There’s not a better man in the regiment for bullet wounds. Amalia, fetch hot water, linens, and whatever carbolic you have. Don’t wake anyone else in the house. Izzy, lock that door.”

“You can’t come barging in this house giving orders, Evan MacGregor!” Elizabeth sparked, recovering her wits.

Evan’s dark eyes bored deep into hers, sharp and hard, like the eyes of a man sighting the barrel of a pistol on the heart of his enemy.

“Do as you’re told,” he commanded. He released her arm, but the impression of his strong fingers gripping her wrist remained as he turned to deal with the older Amalia Murray’s sputtering protests. She looked on the verge of vapors, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth in horror. Krissy hurried down the stairs and quietly slipped an arm around Lady Amalia to support her, lest she faint.

“Amalia!” Tullibardine rasped. He caught hold of the newel post for support. “Do exactly as MacGregor orders!”

“Well, I never!” Amalia roused herself to the authority she was well versed in wielding with all of her siblings, including her eldest brother, the marquess. “John, I will have some explanation, this very moment!”

“No, you won’t!” Evan MacGregor cut Amalia short. “You’ll get an explanation once we’ve got Tullie’s bleeding under control.”

Amalia started to protest that order, but this time Evan MacGregor shut off her tirade before it could begin. “Woman, the marquess’s life is in more danger this minute than his bloody reputation. If you cannot be of good assistance to him, then kindly stay the hell out of our way!”

Without pause, he turned and took Tullie’s arm off the newel post and helped him mount the stairs, leaving Amalia’s and Krissy’s jaws sagging in shock.

Elizabeth blinked, unable to take her eyes from Evan MacGregor’s commanding back. Where had he learned to exert such overwhelming authority? Why was he, of all people, here? Her throat squeezed dangerously. Her knees felt as wobbly as ninepins hit solidly by a stone bowling ball.

Krissy had the sense to close the door, barring the cold and the wet from entering the house. She dipped in a deep and reverent curtsy. “So tha’s the MacGregor,” the servant said under her breath.

“Aye, the very devil himself,” Elizabeth whispered between her tightly pressed teeth. She made sure the door was bolted and, leading the awestruck Krissy by the band, pulled her along in Amalia’s wake down to the kitchens.

“Why can we not call a doctor?” Krissy asked.

Elizabeth grabbed the largest tray from Keyes’s pantry and slammed it onto the central table. Shot... Heaven help them all, her brother had been shot! Why? How?

Amaha had gotten hold of her wits. She tilted her proud chin and stated unequivocally, “’Tis clear enough. John has been involved in a duel.”

“A duel!” Elizabeth protested. Duels were outlawed, and severe penalties were levied on those who engaged in the practice, if the king got wind of it. “What makes you say such a thing? If he had been in a duel, John would have had the sense to have a surgeon present. Think, Amalia. John’s never been in a duel in his life. He wouldn’t resort to secrecy if he had, not to us.”

“And how do you know that?” Amalia countered, obviously flustered. “I can assume he doesn’t want Father to know.”

Elizabeth muttered, “Oh dear...” She opened a drawer, fetching a stack of clean linens to add to the tray.

“A duel?” Krissy echoed with eyes agog. “Stars! A duel... Over who or what? Mrs. Hamilton’s latest memorial, do you ken? Can someone have accused the marquess of cheating at cards, and called him out?”

Elizabeth groaned inwardly. Amalia made hers more audible. They’d only been in town three days, but Krissy Buchanan had already learned the value of knowing the latest on-dit.

Dodging a pointed look from her sister, Elizabeth hastily took a cloth from the tray and blotted away a sheen of perspiration from her upper lip. God save her, Evan MacGregor was in the same house as she and Robbie! Her heart racketed inside her ribs, and her brain felt paralyzed. Her hands and feet moved with the motility of cold lead.

“Krissy!” Amalia said sternly, fixating on something she could deal with properly. “While you are in the employ of the duke of Atholl, you will not engage in the disgusting habit of repeating gossip belowstairs. Whatever happens in this house does not go one word further.”

“Beg pardon, milady.” Elizabeth’s maid cast a sidelong glance at Amalia, clearly hurt to be the focus of Amalia’s formidable ire.

“My dear sister,” Elizabeth said, defending her loyal servant, “are you forgetting that you are the one who just suggested Tullie’s been in a duel?”

“Well, heavenly days, I don’t know that for a fact!” Amalia sputtered. “Don’t either of you repeat it!”

“Amalia, please! That’s entirely uncalled-for. We both know better.” Elizabeth managed an apologetic murmur to Krissy, excusing both her and Amalia’s overreactions to their shock.

Amalia curbed her temper, despite the mutiny that sparkled in the Scottish maid’s amber eyes. There simply was no one more territorial, proud and possessive than a Scots personal servant. Amalia well knew that Krissy’s loyalty was solely to Elizabeth. Moreover, Elizabeth thrived on being original and different. Together, the two of them made an unpredictable, unmanageable pair in the duke of Atholl’s household, for which Amalia was responsible.

Evan MacGregor! What next? Amalia thought as she vainly sought her lost composure. She flashed a warning look at Elizabeth. No matter what, she must see that Elizabeth was never alone for one minute with that Highland rakehell! He’d caused enough damage five years ago.

Misinterpreting the reason for Amalia’s scowls, Krissy flashed a placating smile of apology, saying, “Forgive me, Lady Amalia. When I gets excited, I forgets myself.”

“A proper lady’s abigail never gets excited,” Amalia said with authority. She was on firm ground here, knowing all the hard-and-fast rules regarding ladylike behavior. “Forgive my sharp words, Krissy. Rare is the day when Elizabeth sets you a good example.”

“Well, and I thank you for that vote of confidence,” Elizabeth interjected. It had been too much to hope that she’d escape Amalia’s eagle-eyed circumspection. God clearly wasn’t listening to her frantic prayers that the past be forgotten.

“Humph.” Amalia hoisted the tray. “Fetch the water upstairs as soon as the kettle boils, Elizabeth. And before this progresses to disaster, I order you not to act like a hoyden.” She sailed out the door muttering, “Hanging out the windows like bawds in Covent Garden...”

Krissy looked crushed at the severity of Amalia’s scolding, and she promised Elizabeth, in her sister’s absence, “I’ll do better.”

Elizabeth felt a burst of resentment, coupled with anxiety, surge into her veins. Damn Evan! What had brought him out of the seventh level of hell to which she had consigned him years ago?

“It’s not your fault,” she told Krissy.

No sooner had she spoken than a more worrisome thought took root. Good God! What was she thinking of? She’d let Amalia go up alone! What sort of interrogation might Amalia put Evan through when they came face-to-face—alone for the first time in almost six years?

Elizabeth slapped her palm against her cheek. She didn’t dare let Evan be alone with any member of her family! She prodded the red-hot coals under the kettle with a vengeance, muttering, “Boil, damn you!”

Amalia was the unofficial mother of all the duke of Atholl’s unmarried children. She had even delayed her own wedding to Lord Strathallen until next January. Granted, Strathallen had spent the past four years in India, repairing the financial gaps in his inheritance. Amalia had made it plain that her most ardent wish was to have Elizabeth settled before she married herself. In her sister’s estimation, time was running out for Elizabeth.

“What got her in such stew?” Krissy asked boldly, once she was certain Amalia was out of hearing range. “’Tis no’ like we did summat improper.”

Elizabeth stared at the black kettle. A wisp of steam wafted out the spout, swirling like the mist that had swirled up and around Evan MacGregor as he came through the front door. How could she have forgotten the impact of his eyes?

“Milady, did you not hear me?” Krissy asked.

“Oh!” Elizabeth yanked her gaze from the steam and made a futile, belated effort to compose her face. “What was that, Krissy?”

“Och, I knew it! Ya felt it, din’t ya?” Krissy executed a fey pirouette between the worktable and the stove, on amazingly nimble feet for one of her years. Her voice sounded so wishful, she could have been reading Elizabeth’s mind.

“Did ya ever see such a bonnie mon? Why, what one of me friends at home would believe I saw the bra’ MacGregor himself, striding out of the mists... across our own step...in London! Do ya no’ realize, lass, that he’s the first of the Gregarach born in ten generations to walk tall and proud, boasting his true name, in London, afore God, king and country? I never thought to see such a sight, ever!”

“You’re exaggerating just a trifle, Krissy,” Elizabeth commented, without a trilling burr in her speech.

“Faith! I din’t!”

“Every MacGregor we know took back their clan name the day the proscription ban was lifted,” Elizabeth argued.

“Tha’s no’ the same thing.” Krissy shook her head vehemently. “God strike the bleeding Sassenach all around us, din’t the mon walk straight in from the mist, with his head still attached to his shoulders? He did! The old laird, God rest his soul, never set a foot in England in his life. He didna trust the English. There’s a new breed of Scotsmen a-coming, and don’ tell me I didna just lay eyes upon one who’s no’ afraid of any mon.”