“No, Your Grace. You have to go home. You can’t walk, you can’t travel. You are going to be in London, in your house, for the next four months. Otherwise, you might not heal properly.”
“I don’t give a damn about healing properly.”
“Well, you should. Because I’m sure you’d like to be able to walk in the future.”
Jack groaned, not from pain but from impotence. “Edmund.”
“Do what the doctor says, Jack. I’ll go help Phineas.”
Phineas and Edmundcame into Jack’s bedchamber in his town house just as his own butler and coachman and three footmen were getting Jack settled in his bed. There had been a long delay in his transport back to his town house as he had been carried home in a litter, the doctor feeling that cobblestones under carriage wheels would endanger the ankle, despite the splint.
“Tell me, Phin.”
“She wasn’t at the ball, Jack. We looked everywhere. I found Reeves cut up as Edmund told you. So I went to her rooms. Empty, except for some jewels and some dresses. Including the one she was wearing tonight. With blood on it.”
“Duncan, Mags. Were they there?”
Phineas shook his head. “No, the Highlander and the angel were gone, too.”
“What are you doing here? You have to go look for them.”
Phineas exchanged looks with Edmund. “I had my carriage take me to Hicks’ Hall since it’s the departure point for coaches going north. Two women, one with red hair, and a very tall man, also with red hair, got on the midnight mail coach.”
Jack clutched at his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. He fell back against the pillows.
Helen was well out of London. She would be in Bedfordshire by dawn.
She wasn’t afraid of anything. What was she fleeing?
Reeves? Arrest?
No.
She’s running away from me.
Thirty
To Helen Boyd, the Countess of Kinmarloch.
My lady:
I was informed you have left London, but I hope this letter finds you safe at home in Kinmarloch.
I am writing to thank you for the return letter you sent via Captain Pike, and for the beginning of my education about the Highlands. I am following your advice and there will be no more clearances in Dunmore. In fact, I will see if it might be possible to have some of my farmers return unless they are happier where they are now.
I beg you will continue to endeavor to enlighten me as to the direction of the administration of Dunmore. I know it is a place for which you have a great affection and this, combined with your wisdom, can only lead to your having the best grasp as to what should be done there now and in the future.
Although I have no plans to marry (as I told you in my first letter), I hope you will consider yourself my proxy duchess and tell me what I should do and the best way to do it. If you have the time and patience, of course.
I have been much occupied of late with reading. I have taken up Mr. Walter Scott’s “The Lady of the Lake.” It concerns Scotland and the Highlands. Have you read it? I am only in the second canto of six and I am waiting for the action to get started since I was told it would have battles and bloodshed. But so far there has just been a hunt and a great deal of poetry. There is a Lady Ellen in the poem and I believe Helen, your name, is a form of Ellen, is it not? Lady Ellen is in love with a valiant young knight named Malcolm but a bloodthirsty Highland chief named Roderick wants her. Her father, good chap, says he will not commit her to a loveless marriage. I think Ellen and Malcolm will be betrothed by the end of the poem. What do you think?
There’s a Scottish king in the poem, too—your King James V. He was the father of Mary, Queen of Scots, wasn’t he? Right now in the poem, he is traveling in disguise, and I have heard there is a legend mooted about that he used to do just that. He would travel anonymously among his people to find out their burdens, the abuses they might suffer under their lords. Rather absurd, right? A king pretending to be someone else, a common man. But maybe his motives make up for his deceit? What do you think?
How is your weather? I understand it rains there frequently. Does your roof leak when it rains?
I hope, again, this letter finds you well. And I hope you will write to me again, if only to tell me how you are faring. I am interested in even the smallest detail of your life in Kinmarloch, and I hope you will indulge me.
Yrs. sincerely,
