Miss Hunt kissed him again, flicking her tongue against his pursed lips. He refused to indulge her mad desires.
“You lied to your own father, you mad hag! Saying I bedded you.”
“Don’t think of it as lying. Think of it as . . . shifting around the order of events. Once we are married, I promise to let you bed me every day, Mr. Kincade. I will be a good wife, I will,” she said earnestly.
“Why me? Why not another man?” He was finding it easier for his tongue to move. The laudanum was wearing off.
“Because you are magnificent.” The girl threaded her fingers through his hair. “That dark hair, those stormy gray eyes, those features cut from marble, and your body . . .” Her eyes rolled down his chest to his legs. “You have a muscled physique not often seen among the gentlemen of England.”
“It’s because I have lived and worked on the land,” Brodie said quietly. “I ken what it means to go hungry, to be poor, to have to work to stay alive. You ken none of this. We willna suit as man and wife.”
“Oh, we will, I assure you. Would you like some water?”
“Aye. I’m damned thirsty.” His voice was hoarse and his throat scratchy.
She poured him a glass, and he was indeed grateful, but the second he took that first bitter gulp, he recognized the taste and his heart hammered with panic.
“You drugged me, lassie . . . you . . .” He said no more as he sank into oblivion.
Lydia cursed in a very unladylike fashion. She and the coach driver, as well as Tucker, the Russells’ tiger, which was what they called the small boy who rode on the back of the coach, all stared at the broken carriage wheel in dismay.
“If it isna one thing, ’tis another,” the burly Scottish driver muttered. “Well, there isna a thing we can do right now, Miss Hunt.”
“Yes, Mr. Graham, you’re quite right.” She eyed the darkening streets with a little trepidation but far more resolve. “I shall have to walk.”
“Not alone you won’t.” The driver turned to the little boy who stood beside him. The lad couldn’t have been more than ten. “Tucker, run home as fast as you can, fetch the grooms, and have them mend the wheel. Tell the mistress I’ll be escorting Miss Hunt home.”
“Yes, Mr. Graham.” The boy ran off like a shot, racing back the way they’d come.
“Is it safe for him to be out alone?” Lydia didn’t want the child endangered for her sake.
“This is Bath, miss, not London. ’Tis far safer. Tucker is a right quick lad, Miss Hunt. He willna do anything to call attention to himself.”
Lydia hesitated a moment longer, then joined Mr. Graham as they walked along the pavement together. It would be a fairly long walk in the dark with only the streetlamps to guide them. But she was glad of the coach driver’s company more than she could say, and she decided a bit of conversation would not be impolite.
“Mr. Graham, if it would not trouble you, might we converse a bit while we walk?”
The coach driver nodded. “If it pleases you, Miss Hunt.”
“You’re from Scotland?” It was more of a rhetorical question, but she was intrigued after seeing Brodie Kincade. She hadn’t had too much interaction with Scotsmen. They were a bit of a rarity in Bath, at least so far as her social circles went.
“Aye, I was born in Inverness, raised there as a lad before I moved to London with my family.”
“What was it like? Scotland, I mean.” She was curious to know more about a land that made handsome, brooding men like Brodie Kincade.
Mr. Graham was silent a moment, but she could sense he was thinking of his childhood there. “It is a place of nature and magic,” he finally said. “The night sky is filled with stars, and a man can still see the old gods in the woods and hills.”
“The old gods?” Lydia asked. “Do you mean the Greek or Roman gods?”
“No, lass, the Scottish ones. We have Beira, the most feared goddess of winter. She’s a brutal old woman, that Beira, but she created the lochs and mountains. Then there’s the kelpies, the water spirits—great horses made of kelp and seafoam—but you’d best be careful, lest they drown you.” He reached up to show her that his fingers were covered with rings. “We wear silver to appease the old gods.”
She marveled at the beautiful Celtic rings he wore and remembered that she had glimpsed a large ring on Mr. Kincade’s right thumb. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now she was quite certain it was one of these pieces of silver.
“Do you miss Scotland?” she asked Mr. Graham.
“Aye. If you visit once, your heart willna leave it. Having been born there, I will always ache for home.”
“But you won’t return?”
He shook his head, a sad, forlorn look in his eyes. “There isna much work there. ’Tis better for my family to live here.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Graham. I cannot imagine how hard that must be.” Yet in a way she could. Her father’s business pursuits had left them in a constant state of upheaval. They might be in Bath for a few more months, but she would wager that by the end of the year they would move somewhere else in England. She had not had a proper home in a long time. She’d forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere, to feel the call of a place that bore the name of home.
When she reached her family’s townhouse, she offered Mr. Graham coin to get him home, but the Scottish driver’s cheeks turned ruddy as he protested.
“Nay. It was my pleasure to walk with you, Miss Hunt.” He bowed and waited at the foot of the stairs until she’d been shown inside. She waved goodbye to him before stepping into the house.
“Miss Hunt, I was told by Miss Portia that you had left for London,” Mr. Annis said as he ushered her inside.
“I believed I was to go, but it seems I am to stay.” She glanced around. “Is my sister at home?”
“No. Your father, sister, and aunt are attending a dinner party at Mr. Rochefort’s home.”
“Oh well, it is too late for me to join them. Please have Mrs. Kloester send a tray of cold cuts up to my bedchamber.”
“Yes, Miss Hunt.” She didn’t miss the shadow of worry on Mr. Annis’s face.
“Mr. Annis, is everything all right?”
“I . . .” The butler’s gaze turned to the hallway, as if he was expecting to see someone.
“Please, Mr. Annis.”
“I do not wish to speak ill of the master . . .”
Lydia placed a hand on his arm. “Of course not. Please, if it is important to you, you may confide in me without fear.”
Annis hesitated. “I cannot even begin to . . .” He straightened his shoulders and sighed. “You must come and see for yourself.” He led her upstairs to one of the empty bedchambers. He unlocked the door, which puzzled Lydia. They had never locked any doors in this house before.
Annis pushed the door open and stepped back. Lydia entered with no small amount of trepidation and gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth at the sight of a large form on the bed.
“Is that,” she whispered to the butler, “a man?”
“Yes, Miss Hunt. He was delivered here two hours ago by four rather questionable-looking men.”