Page 55 of Highland Crown
Cinaed had explained to her who would be at dinner. One of the guests was a man named Kenedy, who was attending with his wife, and a possibility existed that he’d sell Cinaed a ship at a good price. When he told her the leaders of the weavers would be there, as well, Isabella stifled her nervousness. She was being introduced as Mrs. Mackintosh, and she agreed it was highly unlikely anyone from Inverness would recognize her as the wife of Archibald Drummond.
She knew all of her husband’s friends in Edinburgh, and many in Glasgow, as well—their names, their trades, their families, where they lived. These were the names that Lieutenant Hudson and his people wanted from her. It was information she would never reveal, despite the radical reformers’ distrust of her. But whether they were weavers or tinsmiths or carpenters or lawyers, all of those activists she knew were Lowlanders, and none of them would be here in Inverness.
She would go along with Searc’s request—or was it a demand?—if it helped Cinaed get the ship he needed.
Long before it was time to go downstairs, Isabella was dressed and had her hair gathered up in a fashion that was simple and comfortable. Earlier, Cinaed had given her some needed privacy—a gesture she found touching—by offering to bathe and dress in a guest bedchamber one flight below her in the tower.
After he left, however, questions began to edge in. She glanced at the bed where he’d been fighting through the fever and wondered if he’d be sleeping elsewhere. Many married men and women slept separately, butwould he draw undue attention to their relationship, especially when they were still supposedly newlyweds? Could the two of them be in the same room and not continue what they’d begun this morning?
She was relieved when Jean arrived to rescue her from her thoughts. Coming over to the mirror, she circled wordlessly around Isabella, studying the dress carefully. It seemed today that the older woman’s back was a little more stooped. She was more unsteady on her feet than she had been, and her hand shook more severely. No surprise. Jean had been indispensable in caring for Cinaed during the fever. She had to be exhausted from the ordeal, especially since it only added weight to her constant worry about her nephew.
Jean cast a critical eye over the dress and wearer as if she were some Parisian modiste.
“Damn me, but yer a bonnie lass.” She flared the skirts out to get the full effect of the brocade, then pulled down on the bodice, revealing a little bit more of Isabella’s breasts. “When ye go to market with the halibut, mistress, ye don’t hide ’em in the sacking.”
“I’m not taking anything to market, Jean.”
The old woman shrugged and held up the shawl to inspect.
“I just saw yer handsome husband. He’s a fine braw man, to be sure. Ye won’t be recognizing him.”
Isabella pressed a hand to her fluttery stomach. She, too, thought him handsome, with his broad shoulders and his blue eyes and his hair like a lion’s mane. Recognizing him would never be a problem.
“He’s not my husband,” she replied.
“Hush now.” The old woman looked over her shoulder as if afraid the walls might have ears. “Have ye forgot what I told ye the first day we come here? Ye need to be spoke for to belong. And there’s no better person to belong to around here, that I can see, but yer handsome sea captain.”
It wasn’t belonging that worried her. It was the future, and it terrified her. Death was dogging her steps, and she feared taking him down with her.
She didn’t want to think about this idea of husband and wife and the charade he’d started as another way of protecting her.
Isabella faced the mirror. Still, the woman looking back at her was a different person from the one who had, little more than two months ago, fled Edinburgh. A single-minded, dedicated physician had grown into some new creature, a person with the courage and the desire to play a part in a larger world.
Her gaze involuntarily wandered to the bed reflected in the mirror. But she blinked it away.
“Have the guests begun to arrive?” she asked.
“Can’t say. I was down by the pier, milling about with the workers on the docks, hoping one of them Highlanders would come to me again.”
“Did they?”
“I saw a couple of lads that could’ve been the same ones, but when I tried to talk to them, they just moved off.” Jean shook out and refolded the blankets Isabella used at night to sleep on. “Coming in just now, I saw no guests, but that means nothing. This house doesn’t have one door. I swear it has ten. Leastwise, that’s how it seems.”
Isabella hadn’t been out of this chamber since she’darrived, but from what Cinaed told her, Jean might not be wrong.
“I can’t tell ye how many times I’d be down by the kitchens and hear someone’s in a private meeting with that shark when Iknowhis men have answered no door. So where did they come from?”
“Cinaed says this house is a fortress, with all sorts of hidden passageways and secret doors.”
Isabella walked to the window to see if she could see any arrivals from this vantage point.
In the lane below, a tall man impeccably dressed in black coat and trousers passed under her window. A pure white cravat was just visible as he walked across the way. Wide shoulders filled the coat to perfection. He was dressed formally for dinner, but he wore no hat and his dark hair curled over his collar. She wondered if he might be one of the guests.
Before he reached the far side of the lane, he turned and looked up at the window. He nodded, and Isabella’s heart took off like a flock of birds. She flattened her hand against the glass. It was as if Cinaed knew she was watching.
“Didn’t I tell ye? All clean shaved too. The man’s a handsome dog, is he not?” Jean asked, standing beside her. “Who’d not want that one for a husband?”
Cinaed came out for two reasons—learning who these fellows were and what they wanted. The message they’d passed on through Jean wasn’t enough.
