AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He followed. Not far behind. But the blinding attractiveness that had dazzled her hindered him. He was caught. Held. There was conversation. Introductions. His adoring admirers would keep him busy while she made her escape.
The terraces were quiet. The party hadn’t progressed this far yet. Flambeaus guttered and smoked. Lanterns bobbed in the trees on the lawn. But the benches were empty. The arches and summerhouse waiting.
A sweep of the gardens revealed the paths to the park beyond. And once there, she knew her way off the grounds. Had marked the routes as she entered. The professional at work, even then.
She rushed down the stairs. Pretended she didn’t hear Cam call out. Beg her to stop.
There was nothing he could say that would make her feel less like a fool. It was her fault she’d fallen for the gloss and ignored the rot beneath. And it was her fault she’d dared to dream. Because, after all, he’d never promised anything. And too infatuated, she’d never asked.
He called out once more. But by now, she’d concealed herself among the trees. Swift and silent as the wolf, she sped. The gown tore. She reached down, barely drawing breath, and ripped it farther up the side. Immediately, her stride lengthened.
But he was still too close. And a part of her ached to turn around and let him explain.
So she did the forbidden. She murmured the words. Felt the power shiver through her. And dropping the feth-fiada around her like a cloak, she vanished.
Chapter 2
Strathconon, Scotland, six months later
“Wake up, Cam. Time to return to the land of the living.”
A cold blast of air and a nudge at his shoulder jarred him awake. Or at least back into semiconsciousness. He rolled over. Threw up into a slops jar he’d kept handy—this wasn’t the first night hammering himself into oblivion. Wiped his mouth with the back of one sleeve.
“Go away, Brodie,” he snarled. “Don’t you know it’s sacrilege to disturb a corpse?”
“If it were up to me, I’d let ye sleep it off, but a messenger’s come from General Pendergast.”
The chipper matter-of-factness of Brodie’s voice grated on Cam’s nerves.
“You’re to be scraped off the floor, poured into your uniform, and driven to London by the end of the week. Big meeting at the Horse Guards. Very hush-hush.”
Cam thought of heaving a boot in his direction, but his brain and body weren’t cooperating yet. Too much Sinclair whiskey. On top of too much Sinclair whiskey. On top of…well, he couldn’t remember quite that far back. But, no doubt, it had been something equally potent. “You said Pendergast?”
The general had put in an appearance at Charlotte’s funeral. Offered his gruff condolences and immediately moved on to the subject of Napoleon’s return to France, Wellington’s strategy, and the prospect for renewed war.
Cam could have kissed him for his lack of sympathy.
It was bad enough he’d felt nothing at his wife’s death but relief. As if he’d been sprung from prison after a sentence of seven long years. But the weepy, emotional grief he’d been showered with only made him feel worse.
Cam sat up, instantly regretting the impulse. His head throbbed, and his mouth tasted like vomit and alcohol.
“Have ye been sober at all since ye got home?” Brodie pushed a glass into his face. It smelled disgusting. “I’d say it was Charlotte’s death had ye depressed, but I ken she only set ye to drinking when she was alive.”
Cam gulped the drink down without stopping. He’d learned the hard way if you came up for air, so did everything else.
He finished it. Threw his wobbly legs over the bed. Waited for the room to steady. “You know too much for your own good.”
“What are friends for?” Brodie banged through the room. Throwing a clean shirt onto the bed. Fussing. It was like having a really efficient, really annoying valet. “So what has got ye searching for the bottom of every bottle ye pick up?”
“Friends. Hmmph.” Cam yanked his soiled shirt over his head. Sniffed himself. A bath was definitely in order. “Let’s say it was a poor choice on my part.”
Brodie finally dropped into a seat, his frenzied mother-hen behavior apparently at an end. “Was it the blonde or the brunette poor choice? Ye make a habit of them.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Oh, aye.” Brodie MacKay flashed that devilish smile that misled so many women into thinking he was a sweet young man. How wrong they were. “But it’s all right. So many of your poor choices end up being consoled by your understanding best friend.”
Cam stood up. Brodie’s mystery elixir was doing its work. His stomach had the squashy fragility of a gelatin, but the whirling room had settled. He squinted. Now if only his eyes would focus. “She was a redhead. But you didn’t have the chance to console her. You were in London.”
