FOUR
Chrissi tried not to squirm under Alis’s direct gaze and the sharp probe of his questions.
Pragmatic and forthright—that was Alis. He had never been one to mince words.
Moreover, she had forgotten how unnerving he could be—how he listened with his entire body, leaning forward, eager to hear what she might say next.
Physically, he was just as overwhelming.
His shoulders dwarfed the armchair where he sat, his long legs stretched before him.
He had swapped his mud-splattered shirtsleeves for a tailored, superfine suit the gray color of wood ash, a blue-and-cream striped waistcoat underneath.
The chain of a gold pocket watch winked in the light, as did the carved signet ring on his right pinky.
In short, Alis no longer resembled the impoverished student he had been, hungry to uncover artifacts. Instead, he looked like the wealthy lord he had become.
Chrissi felt every last inch of the worn fabric of her outdated dress. Depressingly, it was one of the nicer garments in her meager wardrobe. If Alis dismissed her this afternoon, the dress would not be replaced anytime soon.
Why? she wanted to scream, shaking an angry fist at the sky. Why did fate have to land her here, in this castle, seated across from the remnants of her broken heart? She wanted the past scrubbed from her brain. Heaven knew she had tried to erase Alis from memory.
And now, to find herself entwined with him once more, in desperate need of his charity . . .
“I have enjoyed your archaeological articles,” he said after a moment. “Those ye did with Dr. Newton.”
“Thank you. Stephen encouraged my writing.” Chrissi didn’t add “unlike others” to the end of her sentence, but she was rather sure Alis heard it anyway.
“Are ye no longer writing?” he asked.
“As you are well aware, my lord, a woman must generally have a man’s name beside her own in order to publish.” She set her teacup back on its saucer with an audible clink. “And even then, realizing one’s work in print can be fraught.”
He at least had the decency to wince at her jab.
“Ah.” Alis sat back, saying nothing more.
Please don’t turn me out, she silently pleaded.
She eyed the sandwiches remaining on the tea tray. How many could she eat without sparking more questions?
Though given the ponderance of Alis’s stare and his probing queries about Aunt Eunice, she rather suspected he already understood the whole of her situation—impoverished with few prospects.
She and Stephen had wed without a marriage contract. So foolish of her, in hindsight, not to insist upon one. Not to demand over and over that the gentlemen in her life—father and husband—spare a thought for her future.
But then, she had made a tremendous number of foolish mistakes at that point.
Her father had assumed that her husband would care for her, as the significant sum she had inherited upon her father’s death had become Stephen’s to pass along.
After all, as a woman, she had no personhood under British law; all her possessions were held by her husband.
Chrissi was merely an extension of Stephen.
For his part, Stephen had promised he would amend his will to include her—a promise he had neglected, as she learned after his death.
Stephen could be absent-minded, but she had trusted him to adhere to his word and heed her insistent nagging.
By the time she realized Stephen’s negligence, he was already gone.
And, therefore, all of Stephen’s possessions—including the fortune she had inherited from her father—passed to her husband’s adult son from his first marriage, Mr. Thomas Newton.
It had been a dreadful shock for Chrissi—listening to the solicitor read Stephen’s will and not to hear a single mention of herself. To realize that her own inheritance had been lost.
Thomas had been recalcitrant, refusing to release a single penny of her own monies from his late father’s estate.
He considered his father’s marriage to a much younger woman an affront to his deceased mother.
According to him, Chrissi, in her poverty, only reaped what she had sowed.
If his father had wanted her to have the money, he would have made provision.
A solicitor Chrissi had consulted about the matter had been equally unsympathetic. The man had stated, quite solemnly, that she must have been a difficult wife for her husband to so summarily dismiss her from his will.
And so, desperate to avoid the poorhouse, Chrissi had thrown herself upon Aunt Eunice’s strained charity.
Chrissi’s throat still tightened to think upon the bleak months after Stephen’s death. The cold nights shuttered in Aunt Eunice’s dingiest bedchamber, selling her mother’s jewelry to pay a portion of Eunice’s household expenses.
Archeology had been her only hope of income. She had penned letters to colleagues of her father and Stephen, inquiring after work or possible publishing opportunities. Some had responded. Slowly she had begun to eke a living from the work that came her way.
But this project with Lord Farnell was to have been her saving grace—a large commission that would finally see her coffers replenished and give her a modicum of stability. Perhaps a few coins for a new bonnet and dress. Or even enough clout to garner a publication under her own name.
As long as Aunt Eunice breathed, Chrissi would have a place to rest her head. And if she could continue to work and live by the strictest economy, she might eventually save enough to support herself once Aunt Eunice’s “largesse” reached an end.
Sitting back in his chair, Alis nibbled on a wedge of shortbread, his gaze speculative and far too understanding.
Drat him for knowing Chrissi so well, even at this juncture.
He appeared poised to ask a dozen questions about her circumstances that she desperately wished to avoid.
“And yourself, my lord?” she inquired, a bit too brightly, helping herself to the last roast beef sandwich. “How did you come to inherit the title of Lord Farnell?”
His dark eyes pondered her for another long moment before replying.
“As ye may remember, my great-uncle was Lord Farnell . . . a Lord of Parliament in the Scottish Peerage. His son inherited, and the title was to have passed to three cousins before myself. But illness and an accident claimed their lives one after the other. My predecessor, Captain Michael Maclagan, was a cavalry officer with the Royal Scots Greys and was badly wounded in the seige of Sevastopol. He returned home only to succumb to his injuries a year later. And thus I inherited the lot.” He motioned to indicate the room, the castle, and all that lay beyond.
“Was it a dreadful shock?”
“The death of a family member is always a bit of a shock, I suppose.” He sipped his tea. “And though I cannot say I dislike inheriting, I greatly dislike that it took Michael’s death to bring it to pass.”
“Wisely said.”
Chrissi set a slice of Victoria sponge on her plate.
Alis drank his tea.
So civilized, she mused, the pair of them. An outsider would merely see two friends becoming reacquainted after the passage of many years.
None would suspect the roil of emotion churning like the wind-whipped North Sea within her ribcage.
How could she work with Alis on this project? To relive, day after day, the headiness of that long-ago summer? To ponder, again and again, her many mistakes and wonder if she should have forgiven his shattering choices in the end?
It felt impossible.
But then, returning to Aunt Eunice’s drafty bedchamber felt equally impossible—perhaps literally so unless Alis lent her the funds for the train journey.
No.
She needed this opportunity, this paid commission, too badly to quit the field.
Swallowing, Chrissi decided to match his earlier directness and merely ask what she most wished to know.
“So, my lord, your proposed excavations?”
Those dark eyes continued to assess her, imparting nothing of his thoughts.
“Do ye think it possible to work together, lass, given everything?” His words wafted across the room to her, all the more devastating for their softness.
No. She absolutely did not.
But she had nothing else.
“I . . . I should like to try.”
“Because ye value the archeology?” He studied her for another long moment. “Or because ye need funds?”
Blunt.
So very blunt.
But then, that had always been his way.
Alistair Maclagan would always say precisely what he meant.
“Well.” Chrissi looked to the fire in the hearth, then to the ancient tapestries hanging from the walls before coming back to him. “Can it not be both?”
He shifted forward, elbows coming to his knees. “We both know ye would be on the first train out of Deeside if ye could manage it—happy, once more, to see the backend of my sorry carcass.”
Chrissi bit the inside of her cheek.
True that.
“Nonsense,” she replied. “I would watch the front end of you disappear just as happily.”
The quip earned her a crack of laughter. Alis tilted his head back, white teeth flashing as he chuckled.
It hurt, that sudden burst of joy.
Chrissi had to forcibly resist pressing the heel of her hand to her breastbone to still the ache there.
“Ah, Chris—ehr, Mrs. Newton—how I’ve missed your humor,” he smiled. “Ye were never one to let a proper jibe pass ye by.”
Chrissi pressed her lips together, disliking how they ached to curve into a matching smile. Hating the warmth his words—her name upon his lips—ignited in her chest.
Only Alis had ever called her Chris.
A commotion sounded outside the door—people climbing the stairwell leading from the entrance hall to the great hall.
The butler entered.
“Mrs. Rollins and Miss Rollins, my lord,” he intoned.
A fashionably dressed matron and her daughter breezed past the butler into the room.
A palpable change swept over Alis—spine straightening, gaze eager. Smiling broadly, he stood and crossed the room to greet his guests.
“Welcome.” He bowed first over Mrs. Rollins’s hand and then Miss Rollins’s. “It is a pleasure to have ye here.”
Chrissi rose to her feet, studying the women.
With bright blue eyes and gleaming blonde hair, Miss Rollins appeared the picture of demure, maidenly innocence. She blushed prettily at Alis’s words.
Mrs. Rollins was an older version of her daughter, supervising Alis and her charge with a benevolent expression.
“Please”—he motioned the pair forward—“come greet my houseguest.”
Chrissi well understood her cue to cross the room and smile as Alis made introductions.
“Ye be much younger than I would have supposed, Mrs. Newton. Do ye not think, Mamma?” Miss Rollins smiled prettily at Chrissi and then her mother.
“Aye,” Mrs. Rollins said, voice kind. “Lord Farnell has told us much of your accomplishments, Mrs. Newton. And to know that ye have done so much already in your young life, why it is even more a marvel.”
Chrissi murmured her thanks, trying to understand why the pair were here. Had they stopped in for a visit? A mother looking to secure a husband for her daughter?
Alis motioned for them all to be seated. Mrs. Craib bustled in with another tea tray. Mrs. Rollins poured this time.
It appeared a well-versed routine between them all.
When offered, Chrissi shamelessly added another roast beef finger sandwich to her plate. The ladies chattered with Alis about the vicar’s sermon Sunday last and the unwise changes Farmer McLean was making to his east field.
Clearly, theirs was an acquaintance of some standing.
The conversation finally turned back to Chrissi and her presence here.
“Do ye ken the excavation will uncover something dreadfully exciting, Mrs. Newton?” Miss Rollins asked, balancing a square of Victoria sponge on the edge of her plate.
Had Chrissi ever viewed the world with such wide-eyed innocence?
Perhaps once. Before Alis and heartbreak.
“I always hope to uncover something exciting and new on each excavation,” Chrissi replied.
“Have I told ye the plan for the excavation, Miss Rollins?” Alis asked, gaze solicitous and, Chrissi disliked admitting, fond.
The reason for the ladies’ visit was becoming more and more apparent with each passing moment.
“No,” Miss Rollins beamed, “but I should dearly love to know.”
“Come,” Alis motioned, rising to his feet.
Setting down her plate, Miss Rollins eagerly followed him over to the large window, cooing and giggling as he gestured toward the hills outside, expounding his thoughts on the excavation.
Mrs. Rollins studied the pair from where she sat beside Chrissi. The woman loosed a contented sigh. “They make such a handsome couple, do ye not think, Mrs. Newton?”
“Yes. They do,” Chrissi agreed. “Pretty as a picture.”
And they were.
Alis’s dark head bent near Miss Rollins’s fair one, arm outstretched to point out features of the landscape.
At one point, Miss Rollins turned her head to gaze up at Alis, a fetching blush on her cheeks and starshine in her eyes.
Chrissi challenged the celebrated painter Sir Ewan Campbell himself to capture a more perfect expression of adoration.
Chrissi dropped her eyes to the Victorian sponge on Miss Rollins’s abandoned plate—a bead of strawberry jam dripping down the side into a puddle. As if the cake were weeping.
Clearly, the emotions pricking Chrissi’s eyes were clouding her thinking.
Enough. How many tears could one woman shed over Alistair Maclagan?
Any thought Chrissi had of fighting to complete the excavations died a thousand deaths at the sound of Alis’s laugh over some witticism Miss Rollins murmured.
Better an empty stomach than having to stoically watch Alis court, and likely marry, another woman. Better the cold comfort of Aunt Eunice’s “hospitality” than to drag the grief and pain of their splintered past into the light of day once more.
“I say, Mrs. Newton, your color seems off,” Mrs. Rollins said. “Are ye feeling poorly?”
Bless the woman. She must be the Catholic Saint of Lost Lovers in the guise of a Scottish matron.
“I am rather unwell.” Chrissi pressed a hand to her brow and rose to her feet.
Alis and Miss Rollins turned toward her.
“I do beg your pardon,” Chrissi said, attempting to affect a look of pain. “I fear the events of today have given me something of a headache. Do you mind terribly if I retire to rest my head?”
And pack her trunk and abscond before she did something ridiculous . . . like beg Alis for funds to purchase a railway ticket.
Alis frowned, likely seeing right through Chrissi’s onion-paper of an excuse.
“Of course,” he said.
“I do hope you feel well soon,” Miss Rollins said, her blue eyes limpid with concern. “We are all so delighted to have ye here.”
Not for long if Chrissi could help it.
“Thank you,” she nodded, turning for the door.
But not before witnessing Alis and Miss Rollins bending their heads together once more, the sound of his deep bass chuckle all but chasing Chrissi from the room.