Excerpts

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2017 Juliana Gray There was a time of great prosperity, when riches were abundant upon the land and disease was rare, and even the poor did not starve, but lived unto old age. Still there was great unhappiness, for misery is the lot of mankind, and a certain Lady, whose husband's greed for treasure knew no limits, went one spring to the seaside with her servants and her only son, and swam in the nearby ocean every morning at dawn. Though the Lady knew great strength and skill in the sea, she wore always a thick, elastic suit to cover her legs and her arms, for this land lay in the far north of the country, and its waters were icy . . . The Book of Time, A. M. Haywood (1921) Chapter 1 King's Cross Station, London August 1906 The man stood near the corner of the booking offices as I emerged from the ladies' waiting room, pretending to read a newspaper. He was dressed in the kind of comfortable suit of brown Harris tweed with which any fellow might clothe himself for a long train journey, except he wore it awkwardly, stiff and overly buttoned, like a schoolboy given his first grown-up jacket and trousers. His face I recognized. It was plain and wide, the pale skin hung upon a pair of broad cheekbones, and the hair underneath the tweed cap was a raucous ginger: a man I could never forget. I had first seen him in March, five months ago, upon the Greek island of Naxos. For an instant, we met eyes. I say an instant, but it felt like a minute or more, so charged was the connection between us, and so deep the shock to my bones. He made no sign of recognition, except for having taken the trouble to transfix me at all, and once he accomplished this act, he folded the newspaper twice, tucked it under his arm, and walked off in the direction of the departure platform, where he disappeared into the thickening crowd. According to the station clock, it was now forty-eight minutes past nine, and the Scottish express left King's Cross station promptly at ten. The air was grossly hot and smelled of coal smoke and human perspiration. At the end of the platform, an enormous green locomotive rumbled and boiled, working up a head of steam; the space between us was a carnival of passengers, porters, carts, conductors, and luggage, and somewhere inside it all lurked the man with the ginger hair. My palm was damp inside its cotton glove. I renewed my grip on the handle of my valise--I have always carried my own luggage, whenever possible--and turned to the right, marching toward the first-class Pullman coach exactly midway down the platform. The conductor frowned slightly at my serviceable jacket and hat, at the valise in my hand. I held out my ticket. His face transformed. "Good morning, Miss Truelove," he said, "and might I trouble you to follow me?" Thus we boarded the train. I cast a final glance down the platform as I mounted the steps, but saw no flash of ginger beneath a brown tweed cap. It was not until I settled in my seat--in a private compartment reserved entirely for my use by my employer, the Duke of Olympia--that I caught sight of him again, walking slowly toward the locomotive, hands shoved in his pockets. I craned my neck until he passed out of view, and then I rushed from the compartment to stick my head from the door of the coach, balancing dangerously from the iron steps while shreds of steam drifted around me. Nearly all the passengers had boarded; the last tearful farewells were taking place, the swift embraces between lovers. For a second or two, a series of baggage carts obscured the man's back, until he emerged alone, the fringe of hair just visible at his collar, and swung suddenly to the left into a third-class carriage on the other side of the dining car. The whistle screamed. The shouts of the conductors rang down the platform. I pulled myself back inside the coach, while the beat of my heart echoed above them all, spinning my blood, and somebody's hand came to rest on the sleeve of my jacket. "Is something the matter, Miss Truelove?" asked the conductor. He was about fifty years old, and his face briefly resembled that of my dead father: kind and serious, bracketed by a handsome pair of muttonchops. I stared at him until the shrill whistle cried again, and the vision went away. The whiskers dissolved, the man's face reassembled into its plain, haggardly London self. "Thank you for your concern," I said, "but I am quite all right." I suppose I must have fallen asleep after I returned from the dining car at half past one o'clock, for when I opened my eyes, a woman had taken the seat across from me. A light Midlands mist drizzled against the window glass, and a note of roses had joined the damp odors of the train compartment. The newcomer was short and somewhat stout, wearing a blouse of fine white silk atop a plaid skirt, and a handsome black velvet jacket over all. Her hair was brown and shining, parted exactly down the middle, and her blue eyes frowned at me, as they usually did. The roses, I knew, belonged to her. "It is most unseemly to fall asleep in a public conveyance, Miss Truelove," she told me. I yawned and stretched. "Hardly a fair criticism, from a woman who has always had the good fortune to travel privately." "A head of state cannot possibly travel on a public railway carriage." "I beg leave to point out that you're doing exactly that, just now." "Ah," said the Queen, looking wise, "but you don't believe I exist, do you? A figment of your imagination, as you call me." I was too fatigued to engage in games of logic, so I turned my head to look out the window, where the middle of England presently unrolled in curves of dull, foggy green. "To what do I owe the favor of this audience?" I asked the Queen's reflection. "Some time has passed since last we conversed--" "And for those weeks of peace I am wholly grateful." "Don't interrupt. I want a word with you." "So I guessed." I stuck my hand by my hip, where it pressed against the side of the carriage, to assure myself that the leather portfolio was still tucked between the two. "I suppose I have misbehaved in some way? Disappointed you by thought or deed?" "You already know how I feel about the matter of your employment with the Duke of Olympia. I believe I made that plain when you first took up his offer to direct this little institute of his--" "The Haywood Institute is not small," I said. "Only men's minds are small." "As it happens, however, I am not here to remonstrate with you about that particular folly, which is beyond our immediate hope of correction. I am here to warn you." "Warn me. Of course." I turned to face her. "What dangers do you imagine for me this time?" "In the first place, your rushing down to Scotland to begin with, when you were safely in residence at the duke's house in Belgrave Square, however unsuitable the manner of your employment." "The duke has taken up an invitation to a shooting party in the north of Scotland, and requested my assistance urgently." "That, above all, should have warned you off. Any urgent request on the duke's part is likely to prove unsuitable at best, and dangerous at worst. I don't see why he couldn't ask his private secretary to perform this task, since the fellow's already in his company." "Because--as the duke's telegram informed me--he has discovered another one of his mysterious objects, and Mr. Miller, for all his admirable qualities, is not especially qualified to assist him in that kind of investigation." "I don't see why not. I don't see why he should require a woman to perform this task, when she lacks the strength and judgment of a man." "A quaint sentiment, from a woman who once reigned over half the globe." The Queen lifted her chin and turned it to the window. "Besides," I continued, "the investigation may involve some further exploration of the duke's particular talent, of which Mr. Miller is--as yet--wholly unaware." The Queen fixed her hands upon her lap and said, "In the second place, you ought to be aware that there is a man lurking on this train who has followed you all the way from London." "Yes, I know." "You know? You seem remarkably unconcerned." I shrugged my shoulders. "What can I do? I am untrained in the arts of spycraft. If the man continues on the service to Inverness, I shall simply report the matter to the duke, upon my arrival." "Well!" said the Queen. "If you wish to be of actual help, perhaps you can tell me which carriage he presently occupies." "Number four," she said, with an air of reluctance. "Interesting. He hasn't moved any closer. I suppose that means he already knows my destination." "I don't know what it means, Miss Truelove, but the fellow has a suspicious look to him, which I don't like a bit. You would do well--" "I know exactly what he looks like. His face is sewn upon my memory, I assure you. I first encountered him on the island of Naxos, last spring, when I traveled there--if you'll recall--to free the duke from his captors." "Of course I remember that disaster of an expedition," snapped the Queen, "which brings me to my third warning--" "It was not a disaster. We were perfectly successful in rescuing His Grace from his predicament." "It was a disaster for you, Miss Truelove, for any number of reasons. One of which, I regret very much to tell you, has recently boarded this very--" In the middle of her sentence, the door of the compartment slid open, and the cheerfully handsome face of the Marquess of Silverton inserted itself through the opening, spectacles somewhat befogged by the warmth of the atmosphere. "Why, hullo there, Truelove," he exclaimed. "What a jolly marvel of a coincidence. Do you mind if I join you?" The Queen disappeared, like the extinguishing of a light. No doubt you've heard of Lord Silverton. His name, after all, figures often in those pages of the newspaper that inform a breathless public of the antics of the rich and the celebrated; they might, for form's sake, call him by the abbreviated Lord S----, but you must know whom they mean. After all, no other Lord S---- exists who might conceivably be confused with this one. I regret to say that the editors of these newspapers have exaggerated neither his exploits nor his general character. If anything, he's more Silverton in person than in print. His face is dazzlingly handsome, even adorned by that pair of scholarly spectacles, and the top of his head measures nearly six and a half feet above the ground. His magnificent height and his fair hair and golden skin give you the overall impression of the sun, of Apollo, particularly during the summer: an almost stupefying effect. Sitting in that dull compartment, taken quite by surprise, I stammered out something that must have sounded like acquiescence, for he ducked under the doorway and folded himself into the seat across--he carried no luggage at all--and took my hands. "My dear Truelove," he said, fixing me with a pair of familiar blue eyes, "how very good it is to see you. You look remarkably well, all things considered." "Why, what does that mean?" "I mean you've stuck yourself in London all summer long, working for that damned institute of Haywood's, instead of enjoying yourself in the good, fresh air of an English summer." "As you have, you mean?" "Ah," he said, squeezing my hands, "just how did you know about my summer? I hope you haven't been inquiring after me, Truelove. Smacks of attachment, you know. Might raise my hopes." I pulled my hands away. "Don't joke." "You know I'm not joking. My offer still stands." "I am not going to accept your perfectly absurd offer of marriage, Lord Silverton, even if I believed you actually meant it. Particularly after such news as I've heard of you, these past months." "News? News?" I turned my gaze to the handsome electric sconce on the wall to his right. "If my information is not mistaken, sir, at least three different women have enjoyed the favor of your company in the months since you swore your eternal fidelity to me." "I protest," he said, leaning back in his seat, throwing his long arm along the row of headrests, "I did not swear any such nonsense. My eternal fidelity to one Emmeline Truelove was conditional upon her acceptance of my offer of marriage. In any case, dearest girl, that of which you're speaking was all business. Just ask the dowager duchess. Business, business, business." "You must have been working very hard, then." He grinned. "Very hard, indeed. And now I board the Flying Scotsman at York and discover, to my great astonishment, that my own dear Miss Truelove waits for me, prim and lovely as ever, inside a snug first-class compartment right next to the dining car. Like Christmas in August." "I wasn't waiting for you at all, and if this meeting is a coincidence, then I'm the Queen of Morocco." "I might possibly have had some inside knowledge." "From the duke?" "The thing is, I'm supposed to be up in Perth at this bloody shooting party of Thurso's, except I was unavoidably delayed--" "No doubt." "All in the line of duty, Truelove. Anyway, I wired Thurso yesterday to invite myself back in, and apparently Max caught wind of it and wired me, like the good chap he is, to let me know what a charming coincidence was headed my way." He examined his fingernails. "Perhaps I moved my plans forward a day or two." "I'm sorry to have occasioned the trouble, since there's nothing to be gained from it." "Nothing, Truelove? I don't know about you, but I call an hour or two of privacy in a first-class Pullman coach with the object of one's affections a very satisfactory achievement indeed. Ah, now you're smiling, aren't you? At last. I do like your smiles, my dear. You offer them so rarely." "A momentary lapse. I ought to call the conductor and have you tossed out. His Grace reserved the entire compartment for my privacy." "Wise fellow. One never knows what sort of scoundrel might gain entrance into one's compartment. Strike up a conversation and God knows what else." "Indeed." "And generous of him, too. Shows a proper regard for the comfort of his loyal retainers." "I'm not his retainer at all. The duke has a new private secretary, who performs those duties admirably." "But you're running this infernal institution of his--" "The institute is independent of the duke's estate." "He's paid for it all, however. And you can't deny the fact that you continue to live under Max's roof, despite having resigned your position in his household." Somewhere in the course of this exchange, Silverton's voice lost its jocular tone. His smile disappeared, replaced by a stiff, intent arrangement of his gorgeous features, and though he kept one tweed leg crossed negligently over the other, the hanging foot gave off a series of twitches. I wrapped one hand around the end of the leather portfolio at my side. "Are you attempting to insinuate some sort of impropriety, your lordship? I should very much like you to make yourself clear." "Impropriety? Between you and Max? The two most upright, honorable souls across the length and breadth of jolly England? Perish." He lowered his palm to the seat beside him and leaned forward an inch or two. "But there is talk, Truelove." "Talk? Talk about me?" "My dear, even you can't possibly imagine that our little expedition last spring went without popular remark. He is the new Duke of Olympia, after all. Bears the unfortunate honor of being the finest matrimonial catch of the decade. The entire nation is on tenterhooks for every detail about him, and particularly the feminine company he keeps. Surely you've noticed." I frowned. "But nobody can possibly think he means to marry me." "Oh, of course not. They think you're his mistress." "Good God." "Absurd, isn't it?" Silverton turned his head to the countryside passing beyond the bespattered window. "All you've done is return triumphantly from the Mediterranean in his company, aboard his private yacht--" "Confined to my cabin with seasickness." "--resign your position as his personal secretary to take up directorship of his personal institution--" "My capacity at the Haywood Institute is entirely professional." "--and take up residence in a handsome suite in his house in Belgrave Square--" "The suite I have occupied for the past six years, as secretary for the late duke. This is outrageous." "Oh, bottle your outrage, my love. I'm only telling you what people are saying. Forewarned is forearmed and all that." He paused. "Is it true you're helping him find a wife?" "He has asked my advice on the matter, and I have given it." "No doubt, no doubt. I can just about picture the scene. Lists of suitable candidates, crackling fire, a nice pot of tea between you." I suppose I must have blushed, because the smile returned to Silverton's face. "Well, then," he said, "any inside word for an old friend? The future of the peerage is at stake, after all. To say nothing of my standing in the wagering book at my club." "I am not going to abet you in any sort of wagering, your lordship." "Dash it, Truelove. You're no use at all. Well, no matter. If I had any dosh to spare, I'd place it on the head of that charming daughter of Thurso's." "Hmhm." "Ha! I've guessed it, haven't I? Poor Truelove. Don't feel too confounded. The whole show was blindingly obvious. For one thing, Max might be a capable shot, but he's hardly enthusiastic enough to trudge all the way to a drafty castle in the far north of Scotland without some sort of additional attraction. And she's a lovely girl, that Lady Annis. Quite exceptionally pretty. Have you met her?" "Once, a few years ago. There was a house party at Blenheim. She came with her father." "Ah, you see? Charming girl, eh? Beautiful as the dawn, give or take an hour or two." "If that's the case, I wonder you didn't seek her hand yourself." "And who's to say I didn't?" "Because I find it difficult to believe that her ladyship would have refused a coronet so lustrous as yours." Lord Silverton folded his arms and gazed at me. His body was so long, he sat at an angle in his seat, and his legs stretched diagonally across the compartment, careful not to crowd mine aside. Still, our knees touched from time to time as the train swayed along the line. The light sometimes reflected in the glass of his spectacles, obscuring his eyes. I had neither seen nor touched this man since April, when we parted company along a dusty path on the island of Skyros, full of grief, and yet the sight of him--the touch of him--was so familiar, he might only have popped out for an hour or two, in order to buy a ham sandwich and a newspaper. Except that my heart was beating rapidly, underneath the pressed gray wool of my jacket. At last he turned to the window and lifted one finger to touch the folds of the curtain. "I don't know why your powers of perception should still amaze me, Truelove. I don't quite seem to have gotten used to you." "She will make him an excellent wife, however," I said briskly. "Her kind always does. She will take to the job with enthusiasm." "Of that, I have no doubt at all. And Max?" "You know his heart is already lost. As long as there's liking on both sides, and loyalty, and--I suppose--a necessary degree of physical attraction, he will be content." "Contentment. What an appalling word." "Contentment is all most people long for." "Do they? Poor souls. Although I suppose it all depends on what constitutes your idea of contentment." "A clear conscience," I said. "A useful occupation." "A useful occupation?" Silverton turned from the window. "How interesting. Do you consider your occupation useful, my dear? I daresay Max enjoys his little hobby immensely, but for Emmeline Truelove to make it her life's work--" I said quietly, "You saw yourself what happened on Skyros. You know that was no little hobby. It is a power of extraordinary proportion, and I--we, the duke and I--are desperate to understand it." Lord Silverton reached inside the pocket of his Norfolk jacket--the same jacket, I observed, as the one he had worn last spring--and drew out a cricket ball. "And now Max calls you urgently to his side. For what reason? I find myself asking." "He can tell you that himself, I expect." "He's found something, I'll bet. What is it?" "He didn't say." Silverton tossed the ball in the air and caught it again. "Didn't he? I suppose these rural telegraph operators aren't to be trusted. I say, I'm dashed curious to find out what it is this time. What new object has appeared in Max's universe that doesn't quite belong there. Aren't you?" "Of course I am. I find these anachronisms fascinating. Generally speaking, there is almost always some logical explanation--" "But not quite always." He tossed the ball again, a feat he managed without regarding either ball or hand, keeping his attention strictly--and rather unnervingly--upon my face. "Hence this institute of yours. The Haywood Institute for the Study of Time. And your dropping everything to gallop down the length of Great Britain to Max's assistance." "I am always ready to help His Grace to understand the nature of this burden he bears. I--my God, what--?" But Lord Silverton had already launched himself out the compartment door, leaving only the cricket ball to land on the carpet and roll rather painfully into my right foot. For a moment, I sat in stupor, torn by the instinct to race after Silverton and my duty to protect the leather portfolio at my side. Then, as if electrified, I leapt from my seat, shoved the portfolio under the cushion, and threw open the compartment door. He had already disappeared down the corridor. I cast both ways--dining car or second-class coach?--and spotted the conductor, wearing an astonished face. I dug into the pocket of my jacket and drew out a sovereign. "Sir! The fellow who passed by, the tall one--" He pointed to the dining car. "That way, ma'am." I hurried toward him and pressed the sovereign into his palm. "See that nobody enters my compartment, please." Expecting shock, or disapproval, I found instead a certain relish in the conductor's expression. "With pleasure, ma'am," he said, and I flew up the corridor toward the dining car, thanking him with a wave of my hand. Even before I crossed the corridor between the carriages and opened the door, I knew something had occurred inside. I heard the cries of dismay, the urgent shouts. I yanked the handle and discovered a scene far different from the orderly, somnolent atmosphere I had departed an hour or two ago, brimming with hot tea and cold watercress soup. A melee of outrage, of smashed crockery and spilled potage, of white-clad waiters extracting themselves from silk-clad laps, lay between me and the opposite end of the carriage, the door of which was just now swinging shut. I dashed through it all, pushed aside inconvenient bodies, and jumped across fields of sharp white porcelain, reaching at last the end of the car just as the train made a lurch to the left and sent me sprawling into the chest of a corpulent gentleman who seemed to have been ducking beneath the shelter of his table. "Excuse me," I said, recovering myself, and then, "Did you perhaps see a pair of men--" "That way," he said, and pointed to the nearby door. I thanked him and pulled the door open, continuing into the next carriage, divided between first class and third. The train began a slow curve to the left, and I swayed into the walls of the corridor, checking each compartment, until I burst through the partition to the third-class carriage, composed mostly of women and children, the children hidden behind their mothers' skirts. One woman, catching my frantic gaze, lifted her hand and pointed to the door. "Through there," she said, "God help you." On I dashed, through the next carriage and the next--I had lost count of them by now--until I must have reached the last, because I glimpsed the pile of coal in the tender through the window glass, obscured briefly by a flash of tweed. I ran down the rest of the corridor and wrapped my fingers around the handle of the door, just as the back of a brown tweed jacket smashed into the glass, inches from my nose, and heaved away again. Startled, I jumped back, and then tried again, this time opening the door freely and wheeling about in a cloud of coal dust. But instead of two men before me, locked in struggle, I saw only one: the bright golden head of Lord Silverton, bent at an angle, while his long arms braced on the railing at the side. "What's happened?" I gasped. His lordship turned swiftly. He had lost his cap and his spectacles, and the bone about his right eye bore an ominous red swelling. "He's jumped, the bastard. Rolled down the bank and into the woods." I hurried to the railing and craned my neck to catch some glimpse of the path behind us, but the train was moving too fast, and the bank was already long obscured. I looked up at Silverton's frowning face. "Was it the man from Naxos?" I said. "The ginger fellow?" "How did you know?" "He boarded the train at King's Cross. I saw him there, watching me." Silverton swore softly and turned his back to the blurred landscape. The coal man stood at the edge of the tender, shovel in hand, staring at us. Silverton ran a hand across his bare head and said to me, "Well, then. All's not lost. At least we can be certain of two things." I turned my head back for one last glance. The woods had thickened alongside, and I saw only a blurred tangle of green and brown, softened by the mist. "What are those, pray?" "One, he's bound to turn up again, wherever we're headed, since he's taken so much trouble to find us." "And the other?" A deep, horrified screeching had begun as the train applied its brakes, and already I could hear the footsteps of the conductors, running to the source of all this confusion. Silverton seemed not to hear them. He briefly touched the swelling at his eye and examined the pads of his fingers. Though the drizzle had lifted into a mist, his hair was already damp, and dulling rapidly into brown. "It seems the blackguard is left-handed," he said. We stopped for nearly an hour in the middle of the countryside as the conductors investigated the incident and searched for the missing man. Of course they didn't find him. Silverton answered their questions with his usual jocular calm--The villain picked my pocket, so naturally I gave him chase--while I stood by silently, unnoticed by anybody except the conductor who had accepted my sovereign earlier. He gave me a single nod and kept his mouth shut. By the time we got moving again, we were irretrievably late. We arrived at Waverley station in Edinburgh at half past seven, and Silverton, checking the station clock, checking the timetable, announced with satisfaction that we had missed the evening connection to Inverness, and would have to stay the night here in Edinburgh. "Stay the night?" I said in horror. "Perhaps you have another solution to our predicament? Hire a motorcar, perhaps, and drive the night?" He looked at me with earnest blue eyes, as if I might actually produce a counter-suggestion, as if I might actually agree to drive an automobile across the Scottish wilderness through the dark pitch of midnight. "You know that's impossible," I said. "Well, then. I suppose I'll just hop along and book us a pair of rooms in the hotel. Or one room, as you prefer." "Two, if you please. On opposite sides of the hotel." "Truelove. Think of the economy. To say nothing of the warmth; I'm a terribly thermal beast, I believe you'll discover." I bent to take the handle of my valise. "It's August. I shall be perfectly warm." "Why, don't you know, there's nothing so chilly as August in Scotland. Suit yourself, then. If you change your mind, I shall leave my door unlocked for your convenience." "How kind of you." Silverton reached across our two bodies and lifted my valise, before I could object. "The porters will bring mine," he said gently, and offered his sturdy tweed arm in such a way that I couldn't politely refuse, even if I had wanted to. My father had been dead for many years--at the time of my adventures in Scotland, nearly six--but he nonetheless took the trouble to visit me from time to time. For what reason, I cannot possibly guess. When I arrived at my elegant room in the North British Station Hotel, in the splendid shadow of Castle Rock, he sat in the armchair in the corner, reading from a small leather book. The air outside was still light, Edinburgh Castle outlined in charcoal against the pale sky. A steam whistle cried outside the window. I set down my valise and leaned my back against the door. "Good evening," said my father, folding the book over this thumb. "How do you like Scotland so far?" "I have scarcely seen it. At least the drizzle has let up." "Has Lord Silverton been behaving himself?" "Does he ever?" I levered myself from the door and walked to the desk in the corner, on which I placed the leather portfolio I carried under my arm. "We meet for dinner in an hour." "Do you? I'm glad to hear it. I like the fellow." "Yes, that's the trouble." I stared into the oval mirror above the desk. "So do I. Altogether too much." "Can there be such a thing as too much liking?" "When the other party is as faithless and as fickle as his lordship, yes." "You are unfair to him, Emmeline. Haven't I always warned you not to judge a man by the mask he wears? But I think you know this already. I think you wouldn't care so much for Silverton if you didn't." I turned from the mirror. My father sat quietly, one leg crossed over the other, fingers linked on his knee, exactly as I always remembered him. His whiskers shone in the lamplight, and his face was soft with kindness. "I don't wish to talk about Silverton. I wish to talk about Lord Thurso and his daughter." "You have already met them." "Only briefly. You will recall that a secretary receives little notice from her employer's guests, except when they particularly desire something." My father pressed his thumbs together atop the book and considered the ceiling. "He was a much younger man, when I knew him. Nor has he aged well." "Drink?" "Among other things. Although, when you visit the tower in which he lives, you will hardly blame him for his diversions. Even you, my upright Emmeline." "Lady Thurso, I understand, is long dead." "Yes, alas. In childbed. Lady Annis is the only surviving issue." "With a nice fortune at her disposal. By special provision in the patents, the earldom may pass along the female line to the next legitimate male heir, though Lady Annis does not inherit the title in her own right." "A considerable dowry, though it comes with little money." "The duke does not need money. He needs an agreeable wife who will take on the duties of the Duchess of Olympia with energy and enthusiasm." "Including the getting of heirs." "Let us hope she proves a better breeder than her mother," I said sharply. My father made a noise of assent. "Unfortunate, indeed, that such an old and venerable title should merely fall into the collection of the dukes of Olympia, who will hardly notice it. You know, of course, that old Thurso has a natural son, gotten of a local girl. A bright young fellow." I sank on the corner of the bed. "Does he? Nobody mentioned it to me." "Out of delicacy, no doubt. I am sorry to say that he was born during the period of Thurso's marriage. The mother was the daughter of an attorney in town, a not inconsiderable family. The poor girl refused to give up the child, and Thurso--by all accounts--was very much in love with her." "How peculiar. His lordship didn't strike me as the least bit romantic. The opposite, in fact." My father ran his finger along the spine of his book. "My dear Emmeline," he said softly, "you may one day discover that the man who feels most, shows least." A strange, hot sensation passed across my shoulders at his words. I knit my hands together in my lap and said, "And what about the girl? Did she love him in return?" "That, I cannot say for certain. Once the affair became known, she was ruined. Her own family renounced her. Thurso settled her in a house at some discreet distance from the castle, where the babe was born, and where she continued as his mistress. He had several other children by her, all girls, and after Lady Thurso's death everybody assumed he would marry her, once his mourning had passed." "But he did not?" "I understand she refused him." My father shrugged. "She lives still, raising her girls. The boy went to Oxford and has recently returned. He keeps a room in Thurso Castle and is accepted by everybody. A queer thing, but eminently civilized. I daresay Thurso's desire to see Lady Annis well settled may owe itself to his devotion to this other family." I nodded. "So that more money can be set aside for them. I wonder how Lady Annis feels. I have always found her a proud girl." "I have never seen any animus between sister and brother. I expect she's forgiven her parent for his frailties. As all children eventually must." A strange note altered the timbre of his voice. I had been regarding the pattern of the carpet, too embarrassed to meet his gaze outright, but I now turned my face upward. My father was not looking at me, but at the mirror above the desk, as if he could see something in it that I could not. "You, Father?" I said. "Have you some frailty to confess?" "We are all frail," he said, and then, turning to me, "You must dress for dinner now, Emmeline." "But--" "And be kind to him, my dear. He has, after all, taken the trouble to discover what lies behind your mask. If I'm not mistaken, he has fallen violently in love with what he found there." When I arrived downstairs a half hour later, still electrified by my father's words, I found Lord Silverton resplendent in full Scottish dinner dress and a jovial mood. He kissed my hand and informed me that he had engaged a private room, so as not to start any gossip among the other guests. "I suspect a private dinner between us will have quite the opposite effect," I said. "Do you think so?" He looked astounded. "In that case, I expect you'll have to marry me after all, Truelove. We can't have your reputation left in tatters." "Unlikely, if society already believes me to be the duke's mistress." "Well, that's another thing entirely. You can be the Duke of Olympia's mistress and still find yourself received almost everywhere. Alas, no maiden's reputation can survive the scandal of my bed. You're looking remarkably well, by the by. That frock becomes you extremely." During the course of this shocking speech, he had taken my arm over his sleek black elbow and begun to lead me across the marvelous North British lobby to the hotel restaurant, and I would have been blind not to notice how many people simply stopped to follow our progress. I glanced down at my plain frock of dark blue silk--the only dinner dress I had troubled to pack--and said, "You must be joking." "Not at all. See how everybody stares?" "They're staring at you, O Apollo." "Me?" He flicked his finger at the froth of Highland lace anchoring his neck. "Mere feathers. In your case, however, it's you who become the dress. There's a fascinating liveliness to your skin this evening, Truelove, which I can only hope arises from anticipation." "Anticipation of what?" We entered the restaurant, a grand and brilliantly lit room, where a gentleman in a starched white shirt and black jacket appeared at Silverton's elbow as if conjured. "Your lordship," he said reverently, not daring to notice my presence, "if you will follow me." Without missing an instant, Silverton swept me along in the man's wake, in the direction of a small door at the back of the room. I felt myself blushing, I felt every nerve coming to life beneath my clothing, and still I didn't stop him. I cannot explain why. I certainly ought to have stopped him. "Anticipation of my company, of course," he said genially. "Here we are. I've taken the liberty of ordering a simple supper. I presumed you wouldn't want some kind of rich, heavy ordeal after a day of travel. God knows I don't." The waiter was moving for the intimate table next to the fireplace, but Silverton brushed him aside and held out the chair for me himself. I sat and stared rather blankly at the delicate arrangement of silver and porcelain and crystal before me. "Simple?" I said. "One should never sacrifice elegance for simplicity, Truelove. Indeed, the two are best encountered hand in hand." The waiter had disappeared, leaving us alone with the table, the fire, the small and beautifully dressed room. Silverton extracted a bottle of champagne from a gleaming bucket of ice and worked at the cork while I laid my gloves on my lap and frowned at the expert movements of his fingers. In truth, I was relieved not to have to dine in the public restaurant just now; I was beginning to feel the gaze of the ginger-haired man everywhere, from every corner; I was expecting him to leap from every closet. At least here, in this room, my adversary sat in full view before me, displaying openly all his weaponry. For the onslaught of Silverton's charm, I was perfectly prepared. The champagne, on the other hand, I eyed warily. I do not indulge frequently in wine; it has an early and alarming effect on me, which has, in the past, worked irrevocable consequences on the course of my life. I watched the bubbles rise in the coupe of delicate cut glass, poured by Silverton's generous hand, and I opened my mouth to refuse them. "Now," said his lordship, filling his own glass, "to what shall we toast? My good friend Max, perhaps, for bringing us together this evening? Or for that ginger blackguard, who had much the same effect, if entirely unwitting?" I frowned deeply. He urged the glass to my fingers. "Come along, Truelove. It will settle your nerves amazingly." "My nerves are perfectly settled." "They are not. You're afraid I mean to seduce you, and what's more, you're afraid you're going to allow me to." "Nonsense." "To which suggestion? My seducing you? Or your allowing it?" "Both." "Well, you're certainly wrong on the first count, and I jolly well hope you're wrong on the second. Either way, however, you've earned a glass of France's finest this evening, and it's a damned shame to waste a splendid bottle like this one." I took my lower lip between my teeth. "Go on," he said. "I won't tell Max." "Max has nothing to do with it," I said, and lifted the glass. In the end, he behaved himself beautifully. Not until the coffee was set and the waiter slipped away for the last time did the conversation die away into the kind of silence that laid upon our skins, and Silverton reached one arm across the table to touch the knuckles of my left hand. We sat without moving for a minute or two. Staring at the blurred junction of our fingers, I became aware that we had finished not just the bottle of champagne between us, but the better part of a noble Burgundy as well. Silverton had taken a gentleman's share, of course, but I had done my duty. I felt the familiar, dangerous recklessness stir in my chest, and I thought, I must fight this, it's my enemy, it will destroy me a second time. And then the counter-thought: But I don't want to fight this. "My dear love," Silverton said quietly, "are you quite all right?" I looked up. He had left his spectacles upstairs, and there was nothing between my eyes and his except air, except a few feet of golden, empty space. His face was soft and earnest, his eyes exceptionally blue. "I am quite all right," I said. "Because there is a question I wish to ask you, Truelove, and I hope you'll have the goodness to give me an honest answer, for both our sakes." The pressure of his fingers was light, a mere dance of warmth, and yet I felt it to my bones. Though the coffee was finished, a glass of water remained next to the edge of the saucer. I lifted it with my unoccupied hand and swallowed deep before answering him. "What question is that?" "Only this." He took my other hand and leaned forward across the table, so that I could smell the sweetness of the wine on his breath. "What the devil are you carrying in that portfolio of yours?" I drew my hands sharply away. "I don't know what you mean." "Ah, Truelove. You disappoint me." "I wear your disappointment as a badge of honor." "Where's the trust? Am I not your loyal servant?" "You may be a loyal servant, but not mine." "I protest. Not a hair on your head shall come to harm, if I can help it. And I do mean to help it, my dear. You can't shake me. Nor can you deny that our ginger friend had a particular object in mind when he approached your compartment this afternoon." This brought me up short. "Did he?" "Of course he did. And I suspect that object is the same one you cleverly hid beneath your seat cushion, where no reasonable thief would possibly think to look for it." I sat back in my chair and wished for more wine. "You needn't mock me." "I beg your pardon. But it's a damned good thing I happened along. I shudder to think what might have happened, had the fellow discovered you alone." "The conductor--" "Was not about to prove much use in a proper struggle, I expect." The room was lit dimly: only the two candles aflame on the table, a pair of quiet sconces on the wall, the ebbing coals in the fireplace. Hardly enough light to understand the bland expression now laid before me, to determine how serious Silverton really was underneath the weightless tone of his words. He held my gaze carefully, neither looking away nor allowing me to do the same, and after several long seconds, he added, "If it makes any difference, it was Max who asked me to look after you, and particularly the contents of that little portfolio." "When? How?" "In his telegram." There was no hesitation in his voice, not the slightest trace of guile. And I had traveled beside this man for weeks, had set my own life in the palm of his hand as we traced along the Mediterranean together, and for all his faults, he had never once betrayed that particular trust. I rose from my chair, and he rose, too, because he was a gentleman above all things, even in this moment. I wavered tipsily, putting my hand on the table for balance, while Silverton stared at me from his great height, and I saw that his expression was not bland at all, only tender. "If you wished to see the inside of my room, my lord," I said, "you had only to ask." We went upstairs not by the lift but by some back staircase, with which Silverton was suspiciously familiar. He gave me his arm, and I accepted it. Neither of us spoke until I unlocked the door and stepped inside the room, at which point Silverton slid past me and switched on the electricity. The room burst into light. He looked about, turned to me, and pulled me inside, shutting the door behind us. "What the devil," I said crossly. "It is my policy, my dear, never to take the security of one's room for granted," he replied, placid as ever, "even in so respectable a hotel as the North British." I brushed past him to the window. "If you mean the ginger fellow, he departed the train some hundred miles to the south." "Plenty of time to reach us by now. In any case, he's not the only chap to look out for." I turned. "Who, then?" Silverton had already moved to the opposite side of the room, inspecting the furniture, the door to the en suite bathroom, the curtains hung at the other window. He came to me, lifted the drapery to my left, and allowed it to fall. His chest was very near mine. "About that portfolio," he said. I pointed to the desk. "In the drawer." "Locked?" he said. "There is no lock." "No, of course not." He opened the drawer and took out the portfolio. "Not that a lock would be of any particular use on a desk drawer. Any more than the flimsy mechanism on this piece of leather." "What are you--?" But he had already unpinned the brooch at his throat and stuck it inside the small clasp on the portfolio. It sprang open immediately. "As I thought," he said, shaking his head. "The fellow at the shop assured me--" "Oh, for God's sake, Truelove." He closed the clasp and stuck the portfolio back in its drawer. "You didn't go to a shop, did you?" My cheeks were warm. I nodded at the desk drawer. "Aren't you going to look inside? Satisfy yourself of the contents?" "I don't give a damn about the contents. I do give a damn about you." He was facing the mirror, pinning the brooch back into the lace. Altogether he was magnificent in his Scottish attire. The black jacket fit him exquisitely, emphasizing the neat triangle formed by his shoulders and hips; the reddish plaid reached just below the knee, allowing me to glimpse an inch of thick calf before it disappeared into his stocking. The electric lights drenched his golden hair in a radiance it hardly needed. My mouth was wet, my throat dry. I asked, a little scratchy, whose plaid he wore. "I beg your pardon?" "Your plaid. To which clan does it belong?" "The Elliotts," he said. "My mother's side. Lowlanders, I'm afraid, and a worse set of troublemakers you couldn't meet." "I'm not surprised." "No, I suppose not. It's hellish difficult to amaze you, Truelove, though I shall never cease to try." At which point I realized he was not--as I supposed--pinning the brooch back into the lace jabot at his throat, but rather unfastening the lace altogether, I can't quite say. Sometime in the middle of this exchange, I believe, although a vital moment passed before I found the courage to address the matter. By then he had tossed the jabot on the desk and was unbuttoning his jacket. "What on earth are you doing?" I demanded. "What a question. As you can plainly see, my dear, I am readying myself for bed." "But this isn't your room!" "A tremendous inconvenience, to be sure," he said, sliding his jacket from his shoulders en route to the wardrobe, where he hung the garment carefully on a clothes hanger, "but I shall return to my little bolt-hole before the sun rises, so as not to excite comment. At least, any more comment than strictly necessary. Can I help you with your dress?" "Certainly not!" He closed the wardrobe door and turned to me. "Don't be silly, Truelove. I'm a dab hand with a set of hooks." "I daresay you are, but--look here--" Silverton had grasped my shoulders and rotated me gently to face the wall, while his long, agile fingers unfastened the hooks at my back. "You're in no condition to perform this operation yourself, my dear. Have you always been so susceptible to drink?" "I am not," I said slowly, enunciating each syllable, "susceptible to drink." "No, of course not. A most indelicate observation. I beg your pardon." Several feet away, our images lay reflected in the mirror above the desk: my dark head, bowed slightly, eyes peeking up from beneath my brows; his face above mine, turned earnestly to his work; his shoulders framing my chest, his white shirt billowing from his arms. The dress loosened as he went, falling from my chest. I thought, I must stop him, I must step away, but I could not. The sight in the mirror transfixed me. At length, he felt my interest. He looked up without warning, and our eyes met in the flat plane of the mirror, like two animals encountering each other in a woods. I could hardly speak, but neither could I turn away. His blue eyes had grown hot--how else to describe them?--hot, yes, as if the brain behind them had gone up in flame. His cheeks were pink, his lips thin and red, his eyebrows high. He was anything but bland. "Let me fetch you a glass of water," he said. In the next instant, his image disappeared from the mirror, and I had to catch my dress with my hand to stop it from falling to the ground. I really am quite drunk, I thought, and a faint note of alarm sounded somewhere in my brain, but that was as nothing compared to the whirling in my chest, the mad note of my heartbeat, my fatal recklessness. I let the dress fall around my shoes. (Stop, I thought.) I stepped out of the circle of navy silk and bent to retrieve the garment. I had brought only the one evening dress; over the course of six years as the Duke of Olympia's private secretary, traveling frequently with him and his wife as they enjoyed their position at Britain's highest rank, I had learned never to expect an invitation to dinner. From behind me came the sound of running water. I straightened and walked, in so steady a line as I could, toward the wardrobe, where I hung my frock next to Silverton's black velvet jacket: so close that the sleeves touched, and the bodice of mine had communion with the shoulders of his. "This is most unsuitable," hissed a voice at my right shoulder. "You must clothe yourself at once." "Go away." "I shall not go away. I shall remain exactly where I stand until you--gracious me, you are not unfastening your corset!" "I can't wear it to bed, can I?" "Intemperate girl. To be ruined once is foolishness. To be ruined twice--" "Calm yourself, madam." I folded the corset and laid it on the shelf, before reaching for my dressing gown, already unpacked and hanging from a hook. "I don't believe it's possible to be ruined twice. Ruination is irrevocable." She made an angry noise. "You are so like--" "My mother?" I said tiredly, slipping the robe over my shoulders. "Your father." I turned instantly, but no small, regal figure occupied the space by my side. Instead, Silverton stepped into view, tall and somewhat rumpled, red waistcoat unbuttoned, and offered me a glass of water. "What the devil were you muttering?" he said. "Nothing." "Have you any aspirin, my dear?" "Aspirin? Why should I want aspirin?" "Why, indeed? Drink your water, like a good girl." I drank the water and excused myself, making for the bathroom, and when I returned a moment later, Silverton stood at the window in stocking feet, holding the curtain slightly aside with one hand to glimpse the outline of the castle against the purpling sky. There was a glass of something in his hand; I imagined it was not water. "You ought to leave," I said. He laughed. "That wasn't terribly convincing, my dear." "It's improper for you to stay." "Oh, be honest, Truelove. You don't give a damn about propriety, not really, or you wouldn't have dined with me to begin with. You put on a fine show of correctness, but it's all a disguise. The question is what lies beneath." He turned his head over his shoulder to regard me. "What you're hiding." I folded my arms across my chest. "It's imprudent. If you have any regard for my--for my--" I couldn't quite find the word. "No." He turned back to the window. "I shall stay right here with you. You haven't the wits of a schoolboy at the moment. Imagine if that fellow from the train returns to finish the job." "I can defend myself perfectly well. Besides, the door's locked, and this is the sixth floor." "I refuse to take that sort of chance. I promised Max I'd look after you, didn't I? A most solemn vow." "Then perhaps it's you who wants those papers," I said. "After all, I have only your word about the telegram from Max. What if it's you I should beware of? You who plied me with wine, and used your charm to intrude on my privacy." He dropped the curtain and turned to face me. He had switched off several of the lamps, and in the darkened room, he looked decidedly rakish. His golden hair was disordered, his shirt half-tucked, his red waistcoat unbuttoned at his sides. "My God, Truelove," he said, finishing his drink, "I like the way you think." "I have a pistol in the drawer." "You'd miss, in your condition." "Or I might not." He set down the drink on the windowsill and walked toward me. I held my ground, waiting until he towered a foot or so away, looking quizzically upon my face. "Would you really, Truelove? Shoot me?" "If I had to." Silverton lifted his hand and laid it along the side of my face, from temple to jaw, and his face took on the heavy expression of a man whose thoughts tend to an ancient purpose. I caught his wrist. "What a shame," he whispered. "A shame?" "That you're so thoroughly shelved. I had plans, Truelove. Marvelous plans. Still, rules are rules." Without warning, he bent down and hoisted me into his arms. "To bed with you, now. I shall take the chaise and a blanket." I craned my neck for a glimpse of the chaise in question, which might scarcely have fit the old Queen herself on its compact length. "You can't be serious." "Why will you never take me at my word, my love? I begin to take offense at this void of trust between us." He dumped me carefully into the center of the bed and drew back the covers from one corner. "Come along, now. Sleep will cure you. Perhaps in the morning . . ." "Certainly not." "No," he said regretfully, tucking me under the comforter, "I expect you're right. I shall put in an early order for coffee instead. Black and strong." "Presumptuous." His face loomed over mine, inexpressibly kind and rinsed in gold by the lamp on the bedside table. "Ah, but it's inevitable, you know." "What's inev--inevitable?" "You and me, Truelove. Our souls are cut from the same strange cloth. We don't belong among the rest of them. We belong in some wilderness, with only each other for company." I pulled my hand from beneath the covers and placed my index finger upon his lower lip. "If you touch those papers, I'll shoot you," I whispered. He bent and kissed my forehead. "I'll die a happy man." Of course I had always known that my father--the man who raised me, that is--was not the man who sired me. My parents married when I was about four years old, and my true paternity was never spoken of. Not once did I discover any hint of the gentleman's identity, and how he came to know my mother. Not once did it occur to me to ask. I needed no other father than the one I knew, who continued to love and care for me after my mother died, and whose kindness saturates all the memories of my childhood. But I knew he existed, this other man, this genealogical father. The one who had supplied my mother with the necessary seed of my existence; the one she had known and perhaps loved in the years before she married Mr. Truelove. My mother had lain with this fellow, had known this fellow intimately; he walked the earth with one-half of Emmeline Truelove written in his blood, and yet I knew not his name, nor his face, nor his nationality, nor even whether he still lived. Whenever I entered a room, he might be in it; whenever I navigated a street or a shop or a train compartment, he might be the man who brushed my arm or found the seat across from mine, and I would not recognize him as mine, and neither would he. Or perhaps this is not entirely true. I have one memory, or at least a thought, an image that might be a memory. I am quite young, and my parents are not yet married, or possibly even acquainted. I sit on a rug before a sizzling coal fire, playing with a toy, and a door opens, a rush of cold air. A pair of black legs appears in view, and I reach toward them, and am lifted into the air. There is a moustache and a thick brown beard, and a pair of large, warm blue eyes, which I recognize as belonging to me, as existing for my sake, as if I have some kind of dominion over those eyes. That is all. And I had not considered this memory in many years, had not even remembered that I own it, until the night I went to sleep in the North British Station Hotel in Edinburgh, while the Marquess of Silverton settled on the chaise nearby with a blanket and a pillow borrowed from my own bed. I remembered thinking about the apparition that had recently revisited me, that of the late Queen, and as I drifted into slumber I heard her say again, You are just like your father, and I saw again the image of those blue eyes, that moment on the rug when I was small. I don't recall the dreams that followed, except that they were strange and intense, and I woke gasping some time later, as if drenched in water. I flung myself upright and called out Silverton's name. The room was warm and perfectly dark, but I knew at once that I was alone, and that the leather portfolio, if I cared to look, was no longer in the desk drawer where I had left it. Excerpted from A Strange Scottish Shore by Juliana Gray All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.