One look at the mammoth structure and he felt confident it belonged to Struan Mackenzie. The man wouldn’t live in a home any less grand than this. He’d clawed his way out of the gutters of Glasgow and was now rich as Croesus. Such a man wouldn’t have anything short of a palace for himself and his wife—a wife with whom he was profoundly besotted.
If Marcus was wrong and at the incorrect house, he didn’t give a bloody damn either. He had reached their final destination. He couldn’t continue dragging her through the city in her condition.
He would not lose her. She needed care and this place would be it. If he had to reveal himself as the Duke of Autenberry to gain entrance then so be it. Experience had taught him that people generally gave way once they knew that.
He lowered himself from his mount, careful to not lose his hold on her. He didn’t bother to wait for a groom to approach and tend to their mounts.
Standing, he adjusted the weight of her in his arms and rushed toward the front door, his boots biting into the frozen ground. He left their mounts behind, letting them wander aimlessly in the courtyard, expecting a footman would see to them.
He pounded on the great double doors with his boot. No response. Cursing, he kicked at the door again, glancing down at her ashen face as he did so. His chest squeezed tighter at the glimpse of her face. She was still so pale.
After what felt like an eternity, the door swung open. A ginger-haired man in full livery stared back at him, his expression already fixed in annoyance—no doubt from Marcus’s demanding boot knocking.
He looked Marcus up and down before pinning his gaze on Alyse and asking drolly, “Is she dead?”
“No, and she’s not going to be.” He swept past the servant. “Send for a physician and direct me to a bedchamber. Do you have a maid that can help undress her? She’s damp from the snow. She needs something warm—”
“Who are ye?” the man blustered with a shake of his head, his composure slipping.
“We haven’t time for introductions,” Marcus snapped.
“Sir, I insist on—”
“Is this the residence of Struan Mackenzie?”
“Aye.”
“Then let him know the Duke of Autenberry is availing himself of his hospitality.”
The butler stared at him with his mouth agape, unmoving, scarcely even blinking.
With a muttered curse, Marcus bit out, “Tell him Autenberry is here . . . his brother.” That proclamation delivered, Marcus strode past the man and up the winding marble stairs leading to the second floor, not about to wait for the butler to direct him.
Once on the second floor, he bypassed the double doors of a drawing room. The doors to that room were cracked and voices floated out into corridor, but he didn’t care. At the moment, Alyse needed a bed. That was his foremost concern.
He turned a corridor, dimly aware of the squawking servant trailing behind him.
Holding Alyse in his arms, he managed to push the door latch down on one room, only to discover it was a music room full of instruments. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, he continued searching until he arrived at a vacant bedroom at last.
He strode inside and lowered her on one side of the bed. Moving around the monstrosity, he pulled the covers down and then picked her up and tucked her inside beneath the heavy coverlet.
“Stoke the fire,” he barked at the hovering servant. “And call for a maid to help undress her.” He paused to glare at the unmoving man. “Has the physician been sent for yet? Why must you stand there and gawk?”
The man sputtered and looked ready to object when a feminine voice spoke his name, “Marcus?”
At the sound of his name, he looked toward the door where Poppy Mackenzie stood, formerly Poppy Fairchurch. “What are you doing here?”
“I need your help,” he answered, almost not recognizing the thick, stark quality to his voice.
Her wide gaze swept over him before drifting to Alyse in the bed. Color heightened her cheeks. “Oh!” She hurried forward in a rush of elegant skirts. “What’s amiss with her?”
He followed her gaze to Alyse where she lay as still as death. “I don’t know. She sickened on our journey north . . . she’s feverish.”
Poppy looked to her servant. “Have you sent for the physician?”
“Mrs. Mackenzie,” he said in a strangled voice. “What—who—”
“At once, Givens,” she said, her voice commanding for all its gentleness. “Make haste now. Can you not see our guest is ill? There’s no time for explanations. Do as you’re bade.”
With a final frustrated glance at Marcus, the man hurried from the room.
“Thank you,” he murmured, watching as she pressed the back of her hand to Alyse’s forehead.
“Of course.” She tsked, glancing up at him over Alyse’s alarming inert form. “We’re family, after all.”
The proclamation startled him for a moment. He certainly hadn’t embraced her or her husband as family.
He stifled a wince, an odd tightness wrapping around his chest. He should be grateful that she had such an attitude, he supposed. Without his connection to Struan Mackenzie, he would not have access to this place or access to what would unquestionably be an excellent physician. Mackenzie would settle for no less.
“What are you doing here?”
This time the voice to arrive in their midst was decidedly unfriendly.
Marcus straightened from where he hunkered over Alyse. “Mackenzie,” he greeted, eyeing the giant of a man eating up all the space in the threshold.
“Autenberry,” he returned, stepping into the room, his steps thudding over the thick rug. The man stopped beside his wife and looked over Alyse where she slept in the bed. “Who is she?”
“Alyse,” he returned. “Alyse Bell.”
Mackenzie flicked him a cold stare. “One of your . . . intimates?” Marcus was immediately aware that he had to search for that word and would have likely said something far more ugly if not for the presence of his wife.
“My housekeeper,” he snapped.
“Housekeeper?” Poppy looked bewildered. “You’re traveling with your housekeeper?”
“I’m taking her to my property in the north. She’s going to manage the house there.” Even to his own ears it sounded ridiculous. The only thing more ridiculous was the other version of events. That other truth.
She was the wife he had bought at auction in the market square.
“Housekeeper?” Mackenzie echoed with a curl of his lip, clearly in disbelief. He thought she was his bedmate. A consort. Marcus would greatly like to take a swing at his half brother, but he stopped himself. He needed the bastard. For Alyse’s sake, he had to play nice.
“She’s ill. She needs help. I need your help.” He held Mackenzie’s gaze as he said the words—words he never thought he would utter to this man.
Mackenzie said nothing, merely continued to glare at him.
“Struan,” Poppy hissed, her gaze meaningful as she looked between him and her husband.
Mackenzie finally nodded, relenting. “Very well. I’m not a heartless man. Of course, they can stay here until she is well. We will see to her care.” He turned to look down at his wife and his expression turned soft and besotted and Marcus felt like retching.
A knock sounded on the partially open door. A maid peered in the room holding towels and what appeared to be fresh clothes in her arms. “Mrs. Mackenzie?” she queried. “You’ve need of me?”
“Yes, yes, come in and help me with our guest.” Poppy gestured for them to go. “Out with you two. Struan, get him a drink. We will change her and tend her until the physician arrives.”
Marcus nodded, but still he hesitated, reluctant to leave her side. He looked down at her. She was still so pale. Ashy. Lips tinged blue. Those fine arched eyebrows of hers looked even darker than usual against her pasty skin.
“Come,” Mackenzie advised. “Poppy has spoken. There will be no changing her mind, believe you me.”