Chapter 5 #3
The two men left the room wearing smiles of convivial understanding. All was as well with the world as they could presently expect. Both had differing agendas, yet both were of the opinion they could overcome present difficulties – given the opportunity.
The duke paused suddenly, his gaze caught by a sudden splash of colour that did not belong to the austere browns and dark blues of the Turkish carpet.
The shoes were dark green placed side by side outside the door to the private chapel, little more than a priest’s hole next to the library.
‘Is something wrong, your lordship?’
‘I fear a lady has mislaid her shoes.’
The pair of them stood eyeing the discarded shoes, the duke coldly.
‘They either belong to a servant or a guest. I’m presuming the latter. Though I have never enquired, I cannot believe my female house servants wear satin slippers.’
‘My dear duke, I have to confess that although I have not seen these shoes before, I have seen that lustrous sea green. The owner’s dress is of the same colour. So is the twist of silk she wears in her fiery red hair.’
Alexander looked astounded until he saw the amusement playing around the Virginian’s generous mouth, the unfathomable intelligence shining in his eyes.
‘Find out what she heard. Though not yet. Accost her in the ballroom. Don’t let the little minx know she’s been discovered.’
Ethan agreed to do that. The amusement remained.
‘Any particular reason you don’t want to confront her yourself?’
‘I have my reasons,’ the duke responded before clamping his lips tightly shut.
Ethan read the signs. Questions would not be welcome. He would not pry.
* * *
Surely it wasn’t possible to drown in excitement, but this was the way Lochranza felt.
The two conversations that had occurred in the library – one with Field Marshal Wellesley, the other with Ethan MacKinnon – were disparate but tied inexorably together.
Out of all the conversations she had overheard in that hallowed room of rich woods and shelves of books, this was the most exciting.
They’d been talking about North America. They’d been discussing the war being waged over there, the involvement of the French, the Indians, the newly formed United States and the vast expanse that was Canada.
Although Field Marshal Wellesley was a very important person, it was Ethan MacKinnon who intrigued her. Was he American or Scottish? English? She had heard he had lands in England besides a vast tobacco plantation in Virginia, but where did his loyalties truly lie?
What was he? Many things by the sound of it. But the way he and her uncle had conversed together, there was both trust and subterfuge happening here. Not that she could divulge it to either of them. They must not know she’d been listening.
* * *
Ethan was one of those rare men who could swiftly adapt from one situation to another. The sound of music drifted from the ballroom, a place of gleaming mirrors and the light from a thousand candles glowing like suns.
The French doors at the far end of the room opened to the night air. He espied a secluded orangery at the further end; a place to go and smoke when the dancing and attentive company became too much to bear.
‘I don’t like balls,’ remarked his grace in a low grumble.
The grumble was for Ethan’s ears. A thin-lipped smile was directed at anyone he happened to recognise.
‘I would appreciate if you would stay the night,’ he added once he and MacKinnon were safely smoking pipes out on the terrace, the moon a heavy orb in the black night sky.
‘Is that an order or am I under arrest as an enemy agent?’
‘Would you wish it to be?’
‘It would lie more easily on my shoulders when I am asked by my compatriots why I stayed so long in England, and at the house of a duke.’
‘Then take it that you are here at my insistence, an adjunct to continuing diplomacy regarding the current position between our two countries. In the meantime, please do me the honour of retrieving the key to the room next to the chapel from my niece’s person.’
An amused lifting of eyebrows. ‘No matter where it is?’
‘Do what you have to do.’
‘You are giving me carte blanche with Lady Lochranza?’
Ethan rarely flinched in the face of strong looks from anyone, but the one from his lordship, the craftiest spymaster in Europe, possibly in the world, was unnerving.
Ethan smiled. ‘Something else?’
‘How do you find her?’
Ethan’s amusement spilled into his eyes. ‘Has she mastered fencing as well as she fences with words?’
A smile curved Alexander’s thin lips. ‘Indeed, she has. If the reports I receive are anything to go by, needlework and genteel conversation are not her greatest attributes. She can shoot too, both a pistol and a bow and arrow. A bridegroom might get the love and honour part of the wedding service, but woe betide him if he expects obedience!’
‘Not a compliant bride.’
‘She’s a challenge. I think she would suit you.’
‘You think me a man who rises to any challenge?’
‘I know you are. And what is more, I would trust her to your keeping. I think you would do very well together.’