“I’m not sure. Perhaps they offered him a better position.”
Cullen stood suddenly and paced the length of the cabin before turning to face Captain Still. “Did he go of his own free will?”
The captain gave him a broad smile. “I certainly hope so, because he’s not welcome back here.
He continued. “In a second bit of sad news, I received an Admiralty message from the East India ship just arrived from England and anchored in the harbor basin.”
Cullen couldn’t help peering out the stern sweep of windows in the captain’s quarters for a look at the ship.
Willa seemed more impatient than he was. “What was in the message?”
“You have nothing further to fear from Ariadne. She was murdered on the ship she and Monsieur Duvall took to Naples.”
Cullen exchanged glances with his wife.
“Has anyone been arrested?” Willa’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“No. Unfortunately, her partner, Henri, disappeared into the streets of Naples before her body was discovered in her cabin.”
Cullen stared back out the windows at the ships bobbing in the harbor for a long time before speaking. “I suppose that’s because dead men, or women, tell no tales. Isn’t that right, Captain Still?”
“I find the less tales revealed, the better off we all are.”
Cullen raised his glass, and Willa followed suit.
“Here’s to keeping inconvenient truths to ourselves.” Captain Still raised his glass in a final toast and then rapped on the table for his servants to bring in the steaming dishes for supper.
Epilogue
August, 1822
MacKenzie Lands, Northwest Scotland
Willa sneezed. And then sneezed harder three more times. Just walking through the doorway of the ancient cottage had stirred up clouds of dust. “How many years did you say it’s been since someone lived here?”
Cullen leaned his wide shoulders against the frame of the open door and gave his wife a fond look. “Let’s see. I’m twenty-nine. Umm, that would be twenty-nine years, give or take a few months.”
“Why would your family let this little house stand empty for all that time?”
“Oh, it’s been used, I’m sure, over the years by the odd shepherd or farm manager.”
Willa raised her brows in the relentless look she used to let him know she would not be put off.
“Oh, all right. It’s an old story. My mother disappointed her father, the laird, by loving unwisely and then ending up with a hard-headed lug like me.”
“Loving unwisely?”
“My father’s clan, the MacClouds, were not exactly on the best of terms with the MacKenzies. They met when my father was home for the summer after completing his physician’s studies at Edinburgh and assisting old Doc Clarghy in Inverness.”
“How did they meet?”
“My mother died before I was old enough to be curious and ask her.” He stopped in silence as if he couldn’t go on, but finally he continued in a lower voice. “My father would never talk about my mother. All he ever said was it was never a good idea to marry ‘in a fever of lust.’”
Willa laughed aloud, peals of laughter filling the small parlor they stood in. “No danger of anyone ever looking back and accusing us of such a ‘fever.’”
She sobered at the intense frown on her husband’s face just before he walked surprisingly quickly to her side for a man of his size. He reached down and pulled her up against him so savagely, her bonnet slipped back over her head. He ripped away the ribbon ties and flung it to the floor.
“That’s my best…” she tried to complain before he scooped her up and walked to a plump sofa pushed back against the wall of the front parlor. When he plopped her down, more dust spiraled up, and she sneezed again. They both broke into fits of laughter.
He pulled off his boots and joined her on the dusty sofa, feathering kisses down the tender skin above her breasts. He made short work of the silk fichu covering at her neck and threw it to the floor to join her discarded bonnet. When he eased up her skirts and levered a thumb beneath a garter holding up a stocking, Willa couldn’t stifle a small whimper.
He sat up and leaned close to her lips. “Not so fast, my greedy little Puss. There’s a lot of work ahead of us before she gets what she wants.”
The Arethusa’s crew had been paid off, and they’d come home, Cullen on half pay. When he’d broached the possibility of his volunteering to re-join his old comrades on the West African Squadron, she’d convinced him to change his mind, at least temporarily. She understood his need to go back to the squadron. He needed to wrestle again with the mystery of the cause and ultimate cure of Yellow Fever. However, she had needs of her own. She’d convinced him to bring her to the MacKenzie clan lands to make a home for a special family. Theirs.
During the last few months of their service before the journey back to Portsmouth on the Arethusa, they’d finally discarded all the precautions they’d adopted against conception.
Their lips crushed together in a long kiss, and when he nudged her thighs apart with a knee, she opened to his touches and wrapped her legs around him as he entered her.
Later that night after a long day of sweeping out the cottage and removing sheets from the furniture, they kicked off shoes and stockings to sit cross-legged on the front stoop. She leaned back into his arms while they sipped lemonade and Madeira and counted hundreds of fireflies swooping among the trees.
His Aunt Elspeth had sent a small army of servants to help with the cleaning and prepare a late supper.
“Do you think your aunt suspects we’ve been naughty?”
He turned her to face him. “Naughty? Do you think she knows about the bottles of wine we’ve liberated from her cellars?”
“No, silly…you know…”
“Oh.” He gave a long exhale. “That. I’m afraid the whole clan knows we’re a couple of clumsy lovers who
