Chapter 10
Penelope's House
By the afternoon of the next day, Penelope's house smelled of wax, wine opened too early, and flowers no one intended to admire.
They were being watched before breakfast. An unfamiliar maid had been tidying the corridor outside the bedrooms for more than an hour. Ellis found three reasons to stay near the stairs. Penelope ordered the drawing room doors opened, though the cold came in without an invitation.
Eliza fastened the last button of Penelope's gray gown and stepped back to judge the fall of it.
"The hem is correct," she said.
"I did not ask."
"It was, all the same."
Penelope watched both of them in the glass. Diana stood by the window, reading the list of guests aloud. There were merchants, an officer from the harbor, two local ladies, and Malcolm MacPherson. Sir Tobias Redmayne's name came at the end, with no companion noted.
"Continue, Miss Whitmore."
Diana went on.
She wore dark blue in fine wool, plain enough for a paid companion and good enough to remain in the drawing room.
Under the high collar she kept the silver chain that had belonged to her father.
She had thought about leaving it in her room.
The small weight against her skin reminded her who she had to be while everyone around her insisted on another name.
Eliza gathered Penelope's gloves.
"Boyd sent two more boxes this morning."
Penelope turned her eyes to her.
"And why does that concern you?"
"One of them came with no record. Ellis didn't know where to put it."
"In my study."
"It's already there."
The silence ran a little longer than a domestic answer required.
Diana lowered the list.
"Shall I sort the correspondence before the reception?"
"Only the letters on the smaller table."
Penelope stood. The gray silk barely rustled.
"The rest do not concern you."
The sentence had been placed there to be noticed. Diana inclined her head.
"Naturally."
When Penelope left the room, Eliza waited until the steps reached the stairs.
"The unrecorded box came from Boyd's warehouse," she said, low.
"Did you see the seal?"
"I saw the man who brought it. He unloads wine at the front and everything that shouldn't be counted at the back."
Diana put the guest list away.
"Penelope had it taken to the study."
"And the study will be locked during the reception."
"Then we do not attempt it."
Eliza let out a breath through her nose.
"Graeme would have a different answer."
"Graeme regards doors as a personal affront."
"So would Alistair."
The name stayed between them.
Diana had left a message at the chapel at dawn with the hour of the reception and the Boyd delivery. Graeme was to collect it. Alistair, by every sensible instruction, would stay at the shelter.
She did not believe he would.
As the afternoon went down, the first carriages began to stop in front of the house. Diana received two ladies in the drawing room, listened to Penelope offer remarks about the weather, and kept her attention on the side entrances.
Malcolm arrived alone.
He was a little past thirty, narrow in the shoulders, with the care of a man who never let a garment look worn. The dark green coat followed English fashion; only the surname tied him to the Highlands. He greeted Penelope with a controlled intimacy and turned his face to Diana.
The pause was short.
"Miss Whitmore," Penelope said. "Mr. MacPherson wished to meet you."
Diana dropped the correct curtsy.
"Mr. MacPherson."
"I hear you met with difficulties on the road."
"The road met me first."
"And Highlanders after."
"They tend to occupy space."
Malcolm smiled. It did not reach his eyes.
"You spent six days among them."
"I spent six days attempting to get away from them."
"Would you recognize any of them?"
Diana let a maid pass with a tray before she answered.
"One of them was called Graeme."
"MacLeod?"
Penelope was watching over the rim of her glass.
"I did not hear the surname."
"Curious. Graeme MacLeod does not usually conceal who he is."
"At the time he appeared more interested in concealing someone else."
Malcolm held her gaze.
"The wounded man."
"Yes."
"Describe him."
Diana could have offered green eyes, wide shoulders, and a scar that had come sixteen years with her. Instead she straightened the fold of her glove.
"He was covered in blood, mud, and ill temper. The third characteristic predominated."
One of the ladies nearby let out a surprised laugh. Penelope did not join her.
"Tall?" Malcolm said.
"Lying down, everyone loses some height."
"Dark hair?"
"There was mud."
Malcolm accepted the evasion with the smallest inclination of his head.
"You were fortunate to escape."
"I had a sister."
Eliza was crossing the room at that moment with an empty tray. She did not look at Diana.
Penelope touched Malcolm's arm.
"Boyd has arrived."
The merchant came in through the side corridor, without the discomfort of a man received at the door meant for suppliers. He carried a thick envelope in an inner pocket and the smell of the river caught in his coat.
Malcolm moved off to meet him.
Diana went back to her duty beside an elderly guest who wished to know why Penelope had spent so long near Inverness. While she answered in generalities, she watched Eliza take an instruction from Ellis and go toward the back of the house.
Sir Tobias Redmayne arrived a little later.
He wore no uniform. The cut of the coat and the way he stood made the absence irrelevant. Penelope presented him only to the guests she considered necessary. Tobias said little, listened to Boyd for some minutes, and examined Diana once.
The look did not last. It left her with the impression that he had measured the distance between her and the doors.
"The northern roads are unsettled," Tobias said to Penelope.
"Because of the winter?"
"Because of men who mistake ruins for power."
Malcolm raised his glass.
"Some men need time to understand that they have lost."
Diana kept her face turned to the guest beside her.
Outside, a coal cart stopped on the other side of the street. The driver was a clansman Diana knew only by sight. Under the canvas, among dark sacks, a workman sat with his hood down and one hand braced on the wooden side.
Diana recognized the width of the shoulders before he lifted his face.
Alistair.
The pallor was still there under the short beard. A workman's coat hid the bandage, and the rigid body showed what sitting up was costing him. Graeme was beside the cart, dressed as a porter, pushing an empty barrel.
Neither of them should have been there.
Diana turned back into the room before her eyes gave the recognition away.
Penelope appeared at her side.
"Something interesting in the street?"
"A driver attempting to turn a cart where there is no room."
"Men rarely recognize their limitations before they break something."
"I have observed that."
Penelope regarded her for a moment.
"I imagine so."
The music started in the corner of the room, played by a fiddler hired to keep the silences from becoming public. Diana walked one of the ladies to the card table and used the movement to bring herself near the side door.
Eliza came back with a jug of wine.
"The study's occupied," she said without moving her lips.
"By whom?"
"Boyd and Malcolm. The box has been opened."
"Did you see what was in it?"
"A leather wrapper. Boyd said it goes back to the warehouse before midnight."
Diana took a glass from the tray.
"Did Penelope agree?"
"She had them change the cart and use the smaller quay."
It was enough. The map moved between the house and the warehouse, carried by Boyd under Penelope's orders. The hour and the quay could go to Graeme, provided Eliza could get out without drawing a watcher.
"The pantry needs more coal," Diana said.
"Ellis already asked."
"Ask again. Say the first sack is wet."
Eliza went toward the back.
Diana returned to the drawing room as Tobias was taking his leave. Penelope walked him to the door. Malcolm came over as well and kept his voice under the fiddler's music.
"Leaving so soon?"
"I have what I needed."
"And the map?"
Tobias settled his gloves.
"A map is worth only what men can do with it."
He was gone before Malcolm could answer.
The sentence left a quiet discomfort behind it. Malcolm drank off the rest of his wine and went to find Penelope. Boyd had already disappeared down the side corridor.
Diana went to the smaller table, where letters had been left for her to sort. Invitations, accounts, and two commercial notes. One carried Boyd's name and a charge for storage. Penelope would not have left direct proof. Even so, the sum matched a small box kept for weeks rather than cloth or wine.
She put the letter back among the rest.
The back door opened. A servant came out with a sack of coal on his shoulder. Behind him, Eliza appeared with the delivery receipt and complained, loudly enough for Ellis to hear, that the first load had come in damp.
While the servant argued, she pushed a folded paper under the rope of the empty barrel.
Graeme came past him as a porter, lifted the barrel, and went on to the corner.
The message was away.
Diana let her breath out slowly.
"Have you found anything interesting?"
Malcolm was behind her.
"Accounts," she said. "They are rarely interesting to the person who has to pay them."
"Boyd charges a great deal."
"Penelope chooses her suppliers for discretion, not for economy."
"You know a great deal about her habits."
"I am paid to know."
Malcolm came to the table and touched the letter Diana had just put in place.
"And the habits of the MacLeods?"
"I spent little time with them."
"Time enough to save one."
Diana turned.
"I saved a wounded stranger."
"Is that an important distinction to you?"
"It is a factual distinction."
A servant went past too quickly and struck her arm. The glass he carried tipped. Diana stepped back from the wine, and the clasp at her collar gave under the movement.
The silver chain came free.
The small medallion on it settled against the dark blue cloth.
Malcolm lowered his eyes.
His face lost its polish for the first time that evening. It lasted no more than a second. Diana saw it.
He put out a hand and took hold of the medallion before she could cover it.
"Where did you get this?"
Diana closed her fingers around the chain.
"It belongs to my family."
Malcolm looked at the design cut into the metal, then at her face.
"That chain belonged to Dr. Andrew Fraser."