Page 11 of Beguiled
“A journalist?” Elizabeth repeated. “How interesting. Do you write for a particular periodical?”
For a long moment, Euan paused; then, casting a quick glance at David, he said, “You may not have heard of it.Flint’s Political Register.”
David saw that Elizabeth had heard of it, all right—and who had not? Her dark eyes widened fractionally before she nodded.
Flint’swas a London paper, a radical periodical. With twice the subscribers of Blackwood’s, it was highly popular amongst the lower classes, and hated by the government.
“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” Elizabeth said carefully. “But I thought—I thought it had been closed down.” She seemed more curious than condemnatory.
“It’s been closed down several times actually,” Euan replied. “Every time they close us down, we start up again. Tom Gilmour, who founded it, has been in prison almost a twelvemonth. His wife managed to keep it going for a while after he went in. Then she was jailed too, just last month. Her sister has taken up the mantle for now, and if—or when—she is arrested, the rest of us will keep it going. The people need—”
He broke off. Perhaps he’d noticed David’s gaze flickering around them, checking if any of the other guests were listening. When their eyes met, his expression was part mortification, part defiance. “Sorry. I shouldn’t—I’m an uninvited guest…”
The brief, tense silence was broken by Elizabeth. “I hope you’re not apologising on my account,” she said. “I’ve never met a journalist before. Are you in Edinburgh to write a story?”
That adept little question—a change of direction rather than subject—was typically astute of Elizabeth, and Euan answered gratefully.
“Yes. I’ll be writing a series of articles on the King’s visit to Scotland, actually.” He didn’t need to add that the tone of those articles would be quite different from the fawning flattery of some of the more respectable periodicals. If the articles were to be published byFlint’s Political Register, they would be decidedly republican in tone.
“Ah, now I see why you visited Mr. Lauriston today,” Elizabeth said with a little twinkle in her eye. “You are no better than the rest of us here, begging a bit of a view.”
Euan laughed, even as he appeared discomfited by her teasing, shifting a little on his feet. “In my defence, I wasn’t expecting the view to be quite so good as this. Davy’s come up in the world since last I saw him.”
Before David could decide whether the words were a compliment or an accusation, Catherine’s voice rang out over the murmured conversations in the room.
“Oh, do come and see, everyone! They’re moving at last!”
David’s guests rushed to the window of the parlour. It was plain that it would be impossible for everyone to get a view, notwithstanding that it was a double window and the ladies had obligingly removed their bonnets.
“I’ve a smaller window in my study that a few of us could watch from,” David suggested to the people craning their necks at the back. “Follow me.”
He walked down the short length of the hall and opened the door to his study at the end, holding it open for the small group that had followed him: Elizabeth, Euan and a married couple, the Beggs.
“Oh good! We shall end up having a much better view with just five of us!” Mrs. Begg said happily.
“Ladies to the front, I should think,” Begg said, raising the sash. His wife rushed forward, giggling with excitement, and he stationed himself behind her as though he were her personal bodyguard, turning to Elizabeth to add, “There’s plenty of room at the front, my lady. We gentlemen shall stand at the back.”
Elizabeth shuffled forward, seeming uncomfortable. For an instant, David wondered why; then he didn’t have to wonder. She gave away the reason all by herself, with the hand that went to her neck to tug her stiff collar up a little higher. He wondered if he’d have noticed what she sought to hide if she hadn’t made that betraying little gesture. As it was, he couldn’t help but notice the dark, purplish bruises there, distinctly placed by a hand, the visible bruise-smudges of the fingers on one side and the print of a thumb on the other. It must have been a cruel grip—and recent—to leave such livid marks.
David saw that Euan had plainly seen the marks too—he was frowning. Euan glanced at David, partly as though to check that he too had seen what looked like evidence of abuse, and partly as though seeking an explanation. David shook his head in demonstration of his ignorance, but he couldn’t help remembering Balfour’s words about Elizabeth’s husband as his eyes were drawn again to the back of her neck.
Such a little neck. Though women had never roused his passions, he was not unaffected by them. He appreciated the tender curves of them, the promise they held of succour and safety and home. Looking at Elizabeth’s bruised flesh brought David’s protective instincts to the fore and made him feel sick to his very stomach. How could a man put violent hands on a woman?
On Elizabeth, of all women?
Chapter Four
It took forty-five minutes for the procession to work its way past David’s windows on its way up to the castle.
The Beggs enjoyed it to the full. Especially Mrs. Begg, whooohedandahhed, who pointed out which clans each contingent of highlanders was from—she appeared to have memorised all the tartans—and breathlessly intoned the names of the more important personages as they passed, particularly the mounted clan chiefs in their full regalia.
“Look at Sir Evan MacGregor,” she breathed as the MacGregor clan swept by in a torrent of scarlet. “Have you ever seen anyone so handsome in all your life, Lady Kinnell?”
“Present company excepted, no,” Elizabeth replied, a smile in her voice.
“Oh well, of course!” Mrs. Begg replied, giggling. “Kenneth knows I esteem him above all others, don’t you, my love? But Sir Evan’s costume is just sodashing.”
“I shall have to purchase one just like it,” Mr. Begg replied. “Can you imagine me, Lauriston, addressing the Lord President in tartan and eagle feathers?”