He smiled in response before changing the subject. “Have you seen the portrait gallery?”
Audrey shook her head. “I mostly spent time in the drawing rooms and library on my previous stays, although I have wandered the halls.”
Julius offered an arm. “Shall we?”
He led her to the gallery where Audrey exclaimed with delight over the portrait of his aunt displayed directly by the entry.
“She is so young!”
Indeed, Aunt Gertrude was dressed in the fashion of forty or fifty years earlier, her hair powdered and lifted with whatever odd contraptions they had used in the last century. Her moss-green eyes stared down, her face perfectly austere as was characteristic of aristocratic portraiture.
Julius preferred the real-life version, being rather fond of his maternal great-aunt. Countless times as a youth, he had escaped Lord Snarling’s grim lectures by sneaking into her home. Rose, who helped in the kitchens when the family was in residence, made the best biscuits, warm from the oven, and, despite being a traditional lady of theton, Aunty Gertrude had always been kind to her unhappy nephew.
They walked together down the length of the gallery, stopping to view each of the family portraits that recorded the history of the Hays family until they reached the far end.
“What is this?” asked Audrey, pausing at the end of the gallery. Julius sauntered after her, finding she was staring up at a recent portrait of Lord Hays mounted above a display case covered with a dust sheet. His great-uncle was attired in the style that had been adopted in London of late, that of a Highland lord with a box-pleated kilt of red, green, and yellow. The artist had been generous, filling out Lord Hays’s aged figure to make him appear far more robust than he was at the time of sitting for the painting.
“Lord Hays holds a minor title in Scotland that he inherited through his mother, which is why he belongs to the Highland Society of London. They took it into their heads to collect the patterns of tartans. Something about preserving the clan histories. I think they might be deluded about the whole thing, but it has become quite fashionable amongst those who hold Scottish titles to claim these … vanity tartans, if you will.”
Audrey pointed up at the kilt. “So this is meant to be the tartan of the clan that he is from?”
“That is the theory. My valet has family from Scotland, and he tells me it is all a bit of fanciful propaganda, and that there were no official clan tartans until this recent obsession took hold.” Julius leaned down to grab the edge of the sheet, yanking it back to reveal the ornate enamel and glass display case beneath.
Julius tapped a fingernail on the glass, his hands still bare from eating. Below the glass was a catalogue. “See, there is Bannockburn’s key pattern book, published a few years ago, which is a collection of tartans that the lairds have submitted as belonging to their clans.”
Audrey peered down, tilting her head and pursing her lips in thought. “May I look at the pattern book?”
Julius raised a brow in surprise, but acquiesced, feeling about for the latch to the case and swinging the lid up. Hereached in and pulled it out, then closed the lid to place the book atop it.
Audrey leafed through, nibbling on her lip, which was a sure sign that she was worried about something. She stopped on a page featuring a green and blue tartan pattern. Audrey leaned forward, then back, viewing it from different angles while Julius waited for her to reveal her interest in the book.
“I have seen this worn by a Scottish regiment,” he finally proffered, hoping to prompt her into conversing.
Her eyes found his, clouded with some emotion he could not quite place. “The blackguard who attacked you in the street … I glimpsed this pattern. What does that mean? That he is part of a regiment?”
Julius frowned, shifting his gaze to the illustration and to read the words beside it. “Perhaps. Or he might be connected to Clan Campbell.”
“Does that mean something?”
Julius’s forefinger and thumb found their way to his signet ring, which he twisted. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a memory had been tickled, but he could not quite grasp onto it. “I do not know.”
“Is it a clue?”
He closed the book, replacing it under the glass lid. “It might be. If Campbells are connected to one of the suspects. Or it could be nothing, merely that the attacker himself has Campbell blood. Or simply liked the pattern and purchased it. Do you know what it was you saw?”
Audrey shook her head. “It could have been a scarf, or lining, even a coat. I just saw a great overcoat and a hat, but when he moved, I caught sight of this somewhere in the vicinity of his collar.”
Julius pulled the sheet back into place. “I will inform the others when they return. For now, I cannot say what it means,but it is more than we knew until now. It is shameful that I missed it.”
She laughed, her blonde eyelashes fanning down to the curve of her cheek. “That may have had something to do with fighting off a knife attack with only a walking stick to protect you.”
Julius did not hear what she said, for he was caught, a wave of lust surging through his veins while his fingers itched to reach up and remove the pins from her flaxen hair. It was coming loose, as it often did, and the urge to complete the task, to see the locks flowing down her back, made him salivate with desire. Audrey looked up, alerted by his silence that something was amiss. Her eyes locked with his, and time slowed down as he considered the morals of peeling the mourning gown from her curved body. The one which did not require stays, he recollected. She had been drenched in the rain, revealing the outline of her nipples through the wet fabric.
I have to wed the girl. Can I not …
He licked his lips, Audrey’s gaze dropping to trace the motion, which was when he noticed that her breathing was frayed, ragged, as was his.
Do not get attached! A proper marriage will destroy the friendship we have formed.
