Page 27

With Ines’s quick assistance, Cressida shed the damp and muddy lavender silk for another evening gown of emerald-green Rajasthani muslin and her sodden jean boots for soft silver slippers of fine embroidered leather.

She sat down at the dressing table so that Ines could do something about the wild state of her hair.

‘That poet came in right at the front door, would you believe, dripping wet and as good as naked.’ Ines rolled her eyes at the pockmarked looking-glass: salt worked its way into everything at Drochcala.

She untied the black ribbon, teasing out Cressida’s copper-streaked curls. ‘Does he have the money?’

‘He does, and when I consider it your place to ask questions, you’ll be the first to know, menina.

’ Cressida watched the fleeting change in Ines’s expression in the mirror, aware that she’d failed to hide her own hesitation.

The girl would find out sooner or later: ‘Mr O’Neill was on the boat with Lord Greville and Lord Byron. ’

Ines frowned. ‘Your father’s servant? I don’t like it, mistress. What have any of these men ever done for us? We’re better off without them, just me and you together.’ Her eyes shone with unspoken emotion, and Cressida reached up and took the girl’s hand, briefly squeezing her fingers.

‘I think the Scots were carrying weapons or gunpowder,’ Cressida went on. ‘The dog-head screws on the barrels were coated with pitch: I’ve never seen anyone do that for brandy or whisky, free-traded or otherwise.’

Ines set down the ivory comb with a clatter.

‘I won’t leave you, you little fool,’ Cressida said.

‘If Lord Byron has come and he has money for you, milady, we could be gone from this place by morning,’ Ines said.

‘There will be a moon later: we could travel at night. I saw those maps on the wall outside Mr Tait’s office – they show the whole estate and it looks like easy walking for us from the hills above the house, all the way to Lochinver.

But if your father’s servant is here, then where is your father?

Five hundred pounds you were worth to him.

’ She broke off, watching Cressida’s face in the mirror. ‘We’re not going, are we?’

Cressida forced herself to concentrate on the collection of pearl hairpins on the dressing table before her, white pearls against dark polished wood with a faint scent of beeswax polish.

At the back of her mind, she saw the barrels heaped up in the Drochcala yacht, slick with seaweed, and the angry, resolute expression on Oliver Tait’s face as he gave the order to jettison them all into the loch.

O’Neill had worked hard along with the rest of the men as if he’d known them all his life, lifting barrels, stepping out of the way of coiled, wet rope, and Cressida couldn’t begin to unravel the possibilities of Rosmoney’s presence here: whatever the reason, it could be nothing good. Five hundred pounds should suffice.

Ines picked up the comb again and started teasing out the tangles in Cressida’s curls, speaking around the hairpins in her mouth as she began to secure coiled ringlets.

‘Well, if we’re not going to talk about it and we’re not leaving tonight, then have you decided how you mean to explain changing your gown between drinks in the drawing room and going into supper?

The cut of this bodice will drive your husband to distraction, at least.’

A single look in the mirror bade Ines to concentrate on her work, and a few moments later Cressida stood like a mannequin as Ines smoothed the skirts of her gown, grumbling about the state of the discarded lavender satin.

The dinner gong sounded as she fastened a simple gold chain around Cressida’s neck, and then again, with a loud discordant clatter that was quickly silenced.

Thank God she wasn’t below stairs, given that dinner had been delayed now by at least an hour and a half.

She left Ines to mutter about the state of her stockings and stepped out into the gloom.

The oak-panelled hallway leading to her room was narrow and lit at this stage of the evening only by silvery light streaming in through a sash window at the far end.

Unease shot through her: a sudden, certain awareness that, contrary to appearances, she wasn’t alone.

‘It’s quite all right, don’t be afraid.’ Greville emerged from the room to her left, which Cressida realised was her own bedchamber, adjoining the dressing room.

‘What are you doing in my quarters?’ Briefly, Cressida closed her eyes and once again saw Greville facing her in the dressing room at Crauford House, leaning on the doorframe with all that arrogant poise, shirtsleeves still rolled up to his elbows.

You have not had nearly enough of my orders and strictures. You will not go to Drochcala this summer. You will not seduce George Byron or compromise him in any way, or anything like it.

He was close enough now that she saw him smile, with a flash of genuine humour. ‘ Our quarters, my lady.’

Cressida caught her breath and closed her eyes. This felt more like Kitty’s work than Annis’s. ‘I hope you enjoy sleeping on the floor.’ Silently, she counted to four. ‘How is your arm?’

Greville shrugged; anger crackled in the air between them. ‘It was just a scratch. My man was in at Walcheren; he knows how to manage a wound.’

By now they had reached the top of the stairs, and a hum of conversation rose up from the drawing room below. At Cressida’s side, Greville was tall and slim in his evening dress, broad across the shoulder, his dark hair still a little damp.

‘Would you like to shed any light on why your cousin’s irritable major-domo has a sideline in running black-market trade down the loch?’ he asked, now infuriatingly casual.

‘With pleasure,’ Cressida said. ‘I suspect that the Butes don’t just turn a blind eye to smuggling on their land like most landlords.

Can you imagine Annis Fane of all people learning of any such enterprise without taking her own cut of the profit?

I would imagine that Oliver is expected to arrange any free-trading that takes place here to her satisfaction just as efficiently as he looks after the stalking parties. ’

Greville watched her for a moment in the light of a branch of candles sitting on top of the polished walnut side table, raising one eyebrow.

She’d forgotten how irritating this trick of his was.

There had been a time when she would have told him everything, airing every last suspicion.

Instead, they buzzed around inside her head like flies trapped in a cheese-safe.

‘How did you leave your brother?’ she asked instead.

Greville glanced at her with a searching, half-amused look as if he knew she was hiding something.

‘Chas was still alive although probably regretting it, considering the lecture Crauford read him about frequenting insalubrious parts of London, as if it were his own fault he’d been shot.

I left Crauford himself moralising and refusing to pay the next quarter of James’s allowance after a letter from his dean enquiring after the state of his health.

He apparently hasn’t been seen in Cambridge since Michaelmas.

And so naturally I left Jamie with his pockets to let and furious about it.

The nursery quarters I abandoned to its usual mysterious chaos.

What can I say? Very little changes in my family – it’s still perpetual pandemonium.

’ Greville yawned. ‘Not that it’s any of my affair, by the way, but is there any particular reason why your father’s groom was on that boat full of smugglers just now?

Byron overheard the men talking about some free-trader they called the Gentleman on the Kittiwake – there were a couple from Fraserburgh who weren’t speaking in Gaelic.

I suppose they didn’t realise he can understand Scots.

I take it your father is here somewhere?

It would be just like Rosmoney to give himself a nickname like that. ’

At Cressida’s side, overwhelmingly close to her, Greville smiled with arrogant ease.

‘To be absolutely honest, Nightingale, I’m glad that I have simply no idea why O’Neill is in Scotland, let alone Drochcala, and I intend to keep it that way,’ Cressida said.

He cast such a lordly look down at her that she had to restrain the urge to walk away.

He leaned down, whispering in her ear, his breath warm against the delicate skin of her neck.

‘I don’t believe you’ve ever been absolutely honest about anything.

Not a single day in your life. If you’ve been manoeuvring here with your bloody father, you’ll live to regret it, my dear. ’

Cressida’s mind raced. She wouldn’t think about the fact that Rosmoney was here but had made no effort to seek her out, let alone to apologise for selling her like a horse; in his own mind, it would all be justified, of course.

Ireland had been quiet for years, and yet there were weapons moving, changing hands here at this lonely sea-loch; perhaps they came across the Irish Sea just as she had once done herself, running with the wind from Dublin to the port of Lochinver, where houses and wharves crowded from the hillside down to the sea in the shadow of Suilven.

She had no wish to discover whatever foolish game Rosmoney was here to play, if indeed he was here at all.

Instead, she smiled, sensing Greville’s desire as she looked up at him; she had so seldom allowed herself to recall his face, the slant of his smile or the look in his eyes when he woke.

‘Honesty has never been my strong suit, but I still have a good eye for a gown. Do you approve, my lord?’ Greville probably thought he could tumble her in that guest bedchamber just to keep her in check.

His glance lingered on her face before moving down to her décolletage.

Her breasts rose from the confection of emerald silk, barely confined by stays and fine embroidered linens, and her nipples hardened as he looked at her.

He felt this too, she knew he did, damn him to the sixth circle of hell.

‘That gown?’ Greville spoke looking down at her with his lashes lowered, and tension flickered around his jaw.

‘It’s the sort of wholly indecent confection that suits a woman best when it’s up around her waist, as you well know.

’ Arousal flared in his dark eyes, entwined with such implacable anger and resolution that Cressida’s body betrayed her.

Greville’s gaze rested on Cressida’s face.

‘Well, we can’t remain here. They’ll all be expecting something of us, after all.

May I?’ He held out his arm and Cressida took it, breathless not only at his faint scent of starch and soap, aware of the lean strength beneath layers of superfine and fresh linen.

The sound of familiar laughter drifted up through the open doors of the drawing room: Byron.

Cressida smiled: there was still time to put Lord Greville in his place tonight.

‘I wonder what will be in the first gossipy letter Annis sends to England about you both?’ Greville said.

‘If you pull this off, Caro Lamb will scratch out your eyes, but at least it’ll make the Little Season less sufferingly dull.

I hate London in November. I wonder who Byron is charming now?

’ he went on, lazily. ‘Cleveland or Annis? I’m not sure there could actually be a more sickening combination at the dining table. ’

‘Just make sure you don’t get in my way,’ Cressida said.

Greville turned, with a particular light in his eyes she had not forgotten, not in all these years. ‘As you well know, madam, you’re already in mine.’