carriage stood before the inn door, ostlers holding a pair of strong horses, breaths fogging as they stamped. Boys from the inn wrestled a trunk onto the carriage roof, the innkeeper directing them.
Then a lady emerged from the porch, directly below Richard. The innkeeper sprang to open the carriage door. His bow was respectful, which did not surprise Richard-the lady was his acquaintance of the churchyard.
'Damn!' Eyes on her long tresses, flame bright in the morning, clipped together so they rippled like a river down her back, he swore beneath his breath.
With a regal nod, the lady entered the carriage without a backward glance; she was followed by the older woman Richard had seen in the inn. Just before ascending the carriage steps, the old woman looked back-and up-straight at Richard. He resisted the urge to step back; an instant later, the woman turned and followed her companion into the carriage.
The innkeeper closed the door, the coachman clicked the reins and the carriage lumbered out of the yard. Richard swore some more-his prey was escaping. The carriage reached the end of the village street and turned, not left, toward Crieff, but right-up the road to Keltyhead.
Richard frowned. According to Jessup, his groom and coachman, the narrow, winding Keltyhead road led to McEnery House, and nowhere else.
A discreet tap fell on the door; Worboys entered. Shutting the door, he announced: 'The lady after whom you were inquiring has just departed the inn, sir.'
'I know that.' Richard turned from the window; the carriage was out of sight 'Who is she?'
'A Miss Catriona Hennessy, sir. A connection of the late Mr. McEnery.' Worboys's expression turned supercilious. 'The innkeep, an ignorant heathen, maintains the lady is a witch, sir.'
Richard snorted and turned back to his mirror. Witchy, yes. A witch? It hadn't been any exotic spell that had bewitched him in the night, in the cusp cold of the kirk yard. Memories of sleek, warm, feminine curves, of soft, luscious lips, of an intoxicating kiss, returned…
Setting his pin into his cravat, he reached for his coat. 'We'll leave as soon as I've breakfasted.'
His first sight of McEnery House colored Richard's vision of Seamus McEnery and his mother's last years. Clinging to the wind whipped side of the mountain, the two-story structure seemed hewn from the rock behind it and weathered in similar fashion, totally uninviting as a suitable habitat for humans. Live ones, anyway-the place could have qualified as a mausoleum. The prevailing impression of hard and cold was emphasized by the lack of any vestige of a garden-even the trees, which might have softened the severe lines, stopped well back from the house as if fearing to draw nearer.
Descending from his carriage, Richard could detect no sign of warmth or life, no light burning in defiance of the dull day, no rich curtains draped elegantly about the sashes. Indeed, the windows were narrow and few, presumably from necessity. It had been cold in Keltyburn, at the foot of the mountain-up here, it was freezing.
The front door opened to Worboys's peremptory knock; Richard ascended the steps, leaving Worboys and two foot men to deal with his luggage. An old butler stood waiting just inside the door.
'Richard Cynster,' Richard drawled, and handed him his cane. 'Here at the behest of the late Mr. McEnery.'
The butler bowed. 'The family are in the parlor, sir.'
He relieved Richard of his heavy coat, then led the way. Richard followed; the impression of a tomb intensified as they travelled down uncarpeted flagged corridors, through stone archways flanked by columns of solid granite, past door after door shut tight against the world. The chill was pervasive, Richard was contemplating asking for his coat back when the butler halted and opened a door.
Announced, Richard entered.
'Oh! I say.' A ruddy complexioned gentleman with a shock of reddish hair struggled to his feet-he'd been engaged in a game of spillikins with a boy and a girl on the rug before the fire.
It was a scene so much like the ones Richard was accustomed to, his cool expression relaxed. 'Don't let me interrupt.'
'No, no! That is…' Abruptly drawing breath, the man thrust out his hand. 'Jamie McEnery.' Then, as if recalling the matter with some surprise, he added: 'Laird of Keltyhead.'
Richard gripped the hand offered him. About three years his junior, Jamie was a good head shorter than he, stocky, with a round face and the sort of expression that could only be called open.
'Did you have a good trip up?'
'Tolerably.' Richard glanced at the others seated about the room, a surprising number all garbed in dull mourning.
'Here! Let me introduce you.'
Jamie proceeded to do so, Richard smoothly acknowledged Mary, Jamie's wife, a sweet-faced young woman too passive for his tastes, but, he suspected, quite right for Jamie, and their children, Martha and Alister, both of whom watched him through big, round eyes as if they'd never seen anyone like him before. And then there were Jamie's siblings, two whey faced sisters with their mild husbands and very young, rather sickly looking broods, and last, Jamie's younger brother Malcolm, who appeared not only weak but peevish.
Accepting a chair, Richard had never before felt so much like a large, marauding predator unexpectedly welcomed into a roomful of scrawny chickens. But he hid his teeth and duly took tea to warm him after his journey. The weather provided instant conversation.
'Looks like more snow on the way,' Jamie remarked. 'Good thing you got here before it.'
Richard murmured his assent and sipped his tea.
'It's been particularly cold up here this year,' Mary nervously informed him. 'But the cities-Edinburgh and Glasgow-are somewhat warmer.'
Her sisters-in-law murmured inaudible agreement.
Malcolm stirred, a dissatisfied frown on his face. 'I don't know why we can't remove there for winter like our neighbors do. There's nothing to do here.'
A tense silence ensued, then Jamie rushed into speech. 'Do you shoot? There's good game to be had-Da' always insisted the coverts were kept up to scratch.'
With an easy smile, Richard picked up the conversational gauntlet and helped Jamie steer the talk away from the families' obviously straitened circumstances. A quick glance confirmed that the gentlemen's coats and boots were well worn, even patched, the ladies' gowns a far cry from the latest fashions. The younger children's clothes were clearly hand-me-downs, while the coat Malcolm hunched in was a size too big-one of Jamie's doing double duty.
The answer to Malcolm's question was transparent-Seamus's children lived under his chilly roof because they had nowhere else to go. At least, Richard mused, they had this place as a refuge, and Seamus must have left them well provided for, there was no hint of poverty about the house itself, or its servants. Or the quality of the tea.
Finishing his, he set his cup down and wondered, not for the first time, where his witch was hiding. He'd detected no trace of her, or her older shadow, even in the others' faces. He'd seen her witchy face clearly enough in the bright moonlight, the only resemblance she shared with Jamie and his siblings lay in their red hair. And, perhaps, he conceded, the freckles.
Jamie's and Malcolm's faces were a collage of freckles, their sisters' only marginally less affected. His memory of the witch's complexion was of ivory cream, unblemished except for a dusting of freckles over her pert nose. He'd have to check when next he saw her; despite his wish to hasten that event, he made no mention of her. With no idea who she was-where she stood in relation to the family-he was too wise to mention their meeting, or express any interest in others who might be present.
Languidly, he rose, causing a nervous flutter among the ladies.
Jamie immediately rose, too. 'Is there anything we can get you? I mean-anything you might need?'
While struggling to strike the right note as head of the family, Jamie had an openness of which Richard approved; he smiled lazily down at him. 'No, thank you. I have all I need:' Bar an elusive witch.
With an easy smile and his usual faultless grace, he excused himself and withdrew to his room to refresh himself before luncheon.
Richard did not set eyes on his witch until that evening, when she glided into the drawing room, immediately
