A Stranger's Promise (Lords of Chance Book 1) Page 5

  “What is the only reason that ever brings me here?” Alistair asked.

  Nicholas clucked his tongue. “What has Charles done this time?”

  Alistair heaved a long sigh and raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s a long tale, my friend. Let’s find a private place to speak, aye?” He couldn’t chance the children overhearing.

  They strode to the parlor door, and Alistair stopped and peered inside. It was a small room, pleasant enough, with windows that overlooked the courtyard, and a sideboard laden with a variety of muffins, cakes, and eggs. The children squirmed impatiently at the large oak table in the center of the room, clearly displeased with having to wait, as Charlotte hovered behind the little girl, attempting yet again to tie a ribbon in her unruly red locks.

  He meant to tell them not to wait, that he’d eat elsewhere, but Charlotte chose that moment to bite her lip in concentration and he found himself wondering just how those soft, pink lips would taste.

  “Where did he find her?” Nicholas’ whispered words were followed by a long, low whistle.

  At the sound, Charlotte and the children glanced up.

  “Please, eat.” Alistair nodded at the sideboard. “I have a matter to attend. There’s no need to wait.”

  As Charlotte bobbed a curtsey, he spun on his heel, brusquely waving his friend to follow.

  “She’s a bit out of his league, is she not?” Nicholas began.

  “No’ her,” Alistair interrupted, irritated. After trying a few doors, he found a small, empty sitting room with two shabby velvet chairs and a small table, both placed before a fire long grown cold. No sooner had the door closed behind them, he added, “It’s the children, Nicholas. Charles’ children. Their mother died and he could only bother himself to have them dumped on Lady Prescott’s doorstep before vanishing off to the continent in search of new pleasures.”

  “Ah, my dear fellow, I find myself no longer interested in Charles’ latest escapade.”

  Alistair didn’t like the lusty gleam that lit Nicholas’ ice-blue eyes.

  “Who is she?” Nicholas demanded.

  Alistair moved to a nearby chair and folded his arms over the back. Nicholas’ well-deserved reputation as a rake made him an undesirable candidate to spend time with Charlotte.

  “No one you need know,” Alistair said.

  The man’s keen eyes narrowed in the instant before he crossed the room. He seated himself in the chair beside Alistair and stretched his long legs as he inspected Alistair from head to toe.

  “A bit defensive, are you? I would say, even possessive.”

  “She is no concern of yours,” Alistair replied.

  “Come, come,” his friend pressed with a charming smile. “‘Tis not like you to be defensive over a lass, Alistair. Is she—”

  “Leave it be,” Alistair cut him short. “I am not jesting, lad.”

  The man studied him for a moment, then a slow smile spread over his face. “Then let us speak of other matters.” He withdrew a coin from his waistcoat pocket and began flipping it in the air. “I have been looking for you.”

  “Why, when surely a letter would do?”

  “With mail coaches bogged down by the snow and roads impassable, it’s no wonder you haven’t gotten them. I sent three. But then, perhaps Lady Prescott lost them for you?” He snorted. “There is matter of great delicacy, best dealt with in person, as it requires I take you into my confidence and provide an explanation.”

  “Explanation?” Alistair echoed, now suspicious.

  Nicholas widened his grin. “An explanation as to why you’ll arrive at Culzean to find my guests most likely already there for a most delightful house party.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in. “Guests? Pray tell, what house party is this?”

  “Why, yours, my dear fellow,” Nicholas answered smoothly. “I couldn’t invite her to Dunskey without a misunderstanding. I have only just met the lass.”

  Alistair groaned. “You invited your lover to Culzean?”

  “Nae, not lover. Not yet. She misunderstood. She’s bringing chaperones. Her cousin, some captain, who will no doubt cause problems.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. Then, with a mischievous grin, he leaned forward. “Perhaps I should demonstrate the pain of the word, aye? Now that I find you here at an inn with a delightful…unless, of course, you’re not fancying her in that way…” He let his voice trail off.

  Alistair locked gazes with him. “She is not to be trifled with, Nicholas.”

  A tense silence drew out between them.

  After a moment, Nicholas relaxed back into his chair. “Then I fancy I will enjoy watching.”

  “Why Culzean?” Alistair set the conversation back on track. “I fail to—”

  “It’s a bit of a situation, if you must know,” Nicholas cut in. “And really, why let that grand castle of yours simply rot? You can host a house party with far greater ease than I can. Having it all at Culzean is quite the tidy solution.”

  “For who?” Alistair grated, but then his attention snagged on the word ‘all’. He lifted a brow. “Having it all at Culzean?”

  Nicholas laughed. “We’ve talked about this before,” he replied, dancing around the issue.

  An indirect answer from Nicholas didn’t bode well—especially where women were involved. “Say it, Nicholas,” Alistair ordered. “Have done.”

  “It’s nothing, really. Just a few guests for a month or so. The rest won’t even arrive until the, uh, spring ball.”

  There it was. The dark, treacherous water lurking under the fresh hay. “Spring ball?” Alistair queried in a low, dangerous voice.

  Nicholas shrugged, unperturbed. “A celebration of completing Culzean’s renovation. What worthier cause than that? And may I remind you, that you owe me.” He stressed the words with a lazy grin.

  “How so?”

  “That card game last summer, at the Gordon’s wedding party.”

  Alistair didn’t break his stare. “Do you refer to the card game…that I won?”

  You? Nicholas mouthed the word, lifting both brows as if in surprise.

  Alistair studied him in an attempt to gauge whether or not his response was genuine. With his consummate acting skills, it was often difficult to tell.

  The baronet clapped his palm to his forehead in embarrassment and grinned his widest yet. “Did you win, Alistair?” he asked in astonishment. “Zounds, you did, didn’t you? What a merry blunder. I was certain you stood in my debt. I fear it’s too late to change plans now. I’ve contrived to make a right jolly celebration of it.”

  Alistair opened his mouth, prepared to share his own opinion on that score when Nicholas raised a staying hand. “But before we discuss it further, perhaps you’d care to hear how it all came about? Lady Cassilis had a hand in it,” he quickly added.

  At the mention of his stepmother, Alistair surveyed his friend in a sudden new light. “Pray tell what does this concern then?”

  “It was during a game of Hunt the Slipper at Lord Brexley’s ball,” Nicholas replied with a devious twinkle in his eye.

  Alistair leveled him a look. The only version of Hunt the Slipper that Nicholas ever played involved copious amounts of wine and women. “You were drunk then,” he said bluntly.

  “At least, Lady Cassilis thought so.” Nicholas chuckled, but then his expression sobered. “She claimied she’d soon find the proof she sought, at last, the ‘irrefutable proof’.”

  The ‘irrefutable proof’…his father’s dying words.

  Alistair crossed to the window and looked out over the snow. Obsessed with building the grandest castle in Scotland, the old earl had bankrupted the Cassilis estate. His solution? Legitimize and make Alistair the heir, thus saving his legacy with his son’s self-made fortune. Alistair had always known Lady Cassilis would eventually strike back and contest the will. It had only been a matter of time—even though the courts had assured him the old earl had provided solid proof of his legitimacy and his claim stood unsh
akable. He’d found his legitimacy astonishing, especially after the manner of his upbringing. It was no small wonder Lady Cassilis did, as well. Yet, irrefutable proof? Now? After almost four years from the day when he’d received a letter from Foster, the Cassilis piper, informing him that his father had requested his immediate presence—at his deathbed.

  The mad gallop through the wind driven rain that night had proven fruitless. The old earl hadn’t wished to make peace with his estranged, eldest son as Alistair had hoped.

  Exhausted and wet to the bone, Alistair had burst into his father’s chamber to find him with Lady Cassilis at his side.

  Even now, Alistair could feel the heat of his father’s gaze as he’d rasped in a labored whisper, “Save the castle.”

  “The castle?” Alistair had asked.

  But the harsh old man had turned to his wife and clutched her arm. “The piper keeps the proof, the irrefutable proof that Alistair is my legitimate heir. The castle. Save the castle.”

  The shock that rolled over Alistair was dispelled by the venomous look his stepmother directed at him. Her face twisted into a mask of fury that would live forever in his memory.

  “You have outwitted me for now, with this false evidence of your mother’s marriage,” she spat. “But I know better. She was a mere scullery maid. I’ll find this irrefutable proof and set this travesty to rights.”

  “Perhaps Lady Cassilis convinced the old piper to finally speak, aye?” Nicholas’ deep voice cut through his memories.

  Alistair looked at his friend. “Foster knows nothing of the matter.”

  “You trust the man?”

  “I trust Foster with my life,” Alistair swore. “Without Angus Foster, I would be nothing.”

  It was true. Upon his mother’s death, as a wee lad, Alistair had been sent to his father. But the earl, having already remarried and fathered another son, saw Alistair as either an embarrassment or—as Alistair suspected—a threat to the purse strings of his new wife’s fortune. The earl refused to acknowledge him, and allowed his stepmother to put him to work in the stables. He’d been frightened, lonely, until the piper, Angus Foster, had taken him in as his own. Alistair grew to love the man as a father.

  Hard work and Lady Luck favored Alistair. He accumulated a vast fortune and, given his wealth, it was no small wonder that his debt-ridden father had named him heir. Of course, Lady Cassilis hadn’t objected then. The earl had squandered every penny she’d possessed. Her only means of support lay in letting Alistair inherit to save the estate—and herself and her son, Charles, along with it.

  Alistair gave a bitter laugh. “Lady Cassilis’s timing is impeccable. I have only just settled the last of the debts and set the estate to rights. The family coffers are no longer dry.”

  “Ah, but you have yet to hear the worst.” Nicholas rose. “She’s once again taken up residence in Culzean.”

  Alistair retained his share of determination. The windswept lands of his heritage sang in his blood. After spending his life’s work saving Culzean, he’d no longer give up the castle without a fight.

  He locked gazes with his friend. “How fast can you ride?”

  Nicholas’ eyes lit. “We ride to roust her from your home?”

  “Nae.” Alistair shook his head. “I ride to make sure she stays—until I can find out exactly what she’s up to and lay this matter to rest, once and for all.”

  “Even better,” Nicholas replied with a grin.

  Chapter Five

  Charlotte rapped her knuckles on the breakfast table for the third time. “Slower, children.” She softened the criticism with a smile. “Forks are to be used, not fingers.”

  The boy tossed her a dark scowl. Oh, he was a challenge, that one.

  “Miss Atchenson,” Lord Cassilis’s deep voice sounded from the breakfast parlor door. “Might I have a word?”

  Charlotte’s stomach flipped. A quick look in his direction, hear her the general impression of the man, formidable and aloof in his white linen shirt and a pair of dark gray trousers that hugged muscular thighs. After the embarrassment of hopping through his window the night before, she didn’t quite have the courage to look him in the eye. Already, her cheeks heated.

  She rose and bobbed a curtsey. Then, in an effort to affect a calm and proper tone, softly replied, “Certainly, my lord.”

  He stepped into the parlor and motioned toward the far side of the room. She followed until he stopped.

  “An important matter has come to my attention, Miss Atchenson,” he said. “I must return to Castle Culzean with haste. I am leaving the children in your care.”

  “You’re leaving?” she blurted.

  She looked up into his face. He was clearly distracted and tense, the tendons taut on his neck.

  “Yes.” He nodded and her gaze caught on his dimpled chin. “My men will escort you and the children safely to Culzean.”

  She felt only relief at his words—a selfish sort of relief. He made her uncomfortable. They’d known one another only two days and, already, her heart pounded at his every look and her cheeks threatened to burn a dozen shades of red. She shouldn’t respond to the man in such a way. After all, she’d just been jilted, hadn’t she? Her heart should be a bitter, broken shell. It certainly shouldn’t be trying to sing every time she carried on the most trivial of conversations with her employer.

  “Miss Atchenson?” His gentle inquiry intruded upon her thoughts.

  Charlotte started and cursed the heat that crept up her cheeks. Good heavens, had she been staring into the depths of his brilliant green eyes? Licking her suddenly dry lips, she managed to croak, “Yes, my lord?”

  To her shock, his gaze dropped to her mouth and noticeably lingered there before returning to her eyes. “I will see you in ten days’ time, Miss Atchenson,” he said, then turned on his heel and left her staring at his broad shoulders until he stepped out of the room. What was it about the man? His sheer primal intensity sent shivers down her spine.

  The scrape of a chair on the wood floor brought her back to the present.

  The children. Why couldn’t she remember them? She should have had them bid their father goodbye. Of course, the man had left without so much as a grunt in their direction. Had he no heart?

  The look of disappointment and anger on her young charges’ faces told her they had noticed as well. Determination shot through her and she rushed to the door and burst into the hallway. Lord Cassilis was halfway down the corridor.

  “My lord!” she called.

  Lord Cassilis checked his stride and turned.

  “Wait there,” she ordered. His brow rose in question, but she, whirled and hurried back into the parlor. “Come, children.” Charlotte grasped each by the hand and marched them out of the room and down the hall to their father.

  As they stopped in front of him, a raven-haired man with startling blue eyes stepped from a room to Lord Cassilis’s left. A charming smile pulled at the corner of the man’s mouth. The expensive cut of his coat and the quality of his fine leather boots marked him as a noble.

  Charlotte directed her attention to Lord Cassilis. “My lord, your children wish to bid you farewell.”

  The newcomer’s brows danced in surprise. “Alistairrrr?” he drawled.

  “Enough, Nicholas,” Lord Cassilis warned before stepping forward with a slight bow. “My apologies, Miss Atchenson. Children,” he addressed them in a pleasant rumble, “I fear I find fatherhood rather foreign to me. I meant no disrespect.” He looked down at the small, serious faces, then added, “I will see ye in Culzean soon. I bid you farewell.”

  Charlotte smiled, pleased with his genuine response. The children remained silent. “Children?” She gave their shoulders a nudge.

  The young boy rewarded her effort with a sullen scowl.

  Charlotte struggled to hold her temper in check. She’d taken his father to task on his behalf, and the young rapscallion chose to repay her with this kind of behavior?

  Lord Cassilis’s deep chuc
kle echoed in the hall. “Then it is good day, Miss Atchenson.” He graced her with a smile dangerous enough to sweep her straight off her feet. “I must be going—as soon as I find my hat.”

  His hat. Her mind replayed the image of his black, silk hat aflame.

  “Good day, my lord,” a small voice chimed from her side.

  Incredulous, Charlotte glanced down to see the young boy attempting an awkward bow. The little devil. So, he didn’t want Lord Cassilis knowing about the hat, did he? Had the little troublemaker just handed her the answer to her problem? With the power of blackmail, she could make him dance to her tune. Delighted, she curled her lips into a wicked grin. Suddenly aware she’d once again gotten distracted, she glanced up, startled to see both men watching her.

  “Then good day,” Lord Cassilis said. He turned and said to the man, “Come along, Nicholas.”

  As both men strode away, Charlotte released a long, silent breath of relief. Two weeks. She had two weeks of freedom to clear her mind. But when her eyes followed Lord Cassilis’s thighs as he walked away, she knew she was going to need every hour of those fourteen days to rid her thoughts of the man.

  She took a deep breath and shooed the children back to their room and, in short order, had them buttoned in their coats and bundled outside. The crisp morning air did little to clear her thoughts of Lord Cassilis. She hurried the children toward the coach as footmen tied the last trunk to the back of the waiting barouche.

  “Hop inside,” she said. “We’ve quite the journey ahead of us.”

  The boy hesitated. “Oliver,” he said with a rush, then added, “And Jane, after me mum.”

  Jane stilled, not understanding at first, then smothered a delighted smile. Oliver. His name…or was it? The rascal could easily have drummed up the name so as not to be called Abigail. But then, did it matter? At least, she had him talking and, with the threat of the hat, she could get him moving, if need be.