“I daresay. Now, would you have wine?”
At three in the afternoon the following day, I arrived at the Spencers’ home in our wagon. Roland drove it. Alice sat in it, waiting. I had dressed to appear, I hoped, appealing. I felt keenly aware of the fine lines under my eyes, and I had rubbed raw apple on them to tighten the skin. I walked up the steps and rapped the knocker. The butler raised his eyes and showed me to the parlor. A few minutes later, he returned and said, “Master Lord Spencer would see you in the study, Mistress. If you will follow me?”
The study was a man’s lair. A room of darkened wood and books, two suits of armor on stands, the walls hung about with stuffed creatures such as I had never seen. Wallace stood and bowed with politeness that would have pleased a king. “Mistress MacLammond, I am flattered by your visit. How lovely you look. Time has been good to you, Ressie. One would think you had some witchcraft to keep so beautiful.”
Until he had said the last, I had absorbed his statements with good humor, but witchcraft? That was Wallace as I knew him. Poison at the core like the seeds of an apple. I smiled and said, “You are too kind, Lord Spencer. I am humbled by your attention.”
“Will you have claret?”
“Thank you.” I must save Cullah, spoke my heart. Think of Eadan. Think of him.
He poured two small cut-crystal stemmed glasses, the same type that I had once claimed to have broken. “I am so relieved that you have seen fit to forgive my wife for that unfortunate scene when last you called. I’m sure she was just having a spell. She does now and then. Unfortunately, she is out just now.”
“Lord Spencer, oh Wallace, I knew she was out. I wished to speak to you alone.”
“Oh? Well, well, Ressie. I am flattered indeed.” He sat before me and pulled the chair closer so that his knees touched my own. “How, dear lady, may I serve you?”
I took several deep breaths, remembering everything I meant to say as I had rehearsed it. At last, I looked into his eyes, putting in my heart the feelings I had not for Wallace but for Eadan, so that I could speak with my love upon my face. I knew that he would see it and mistake its meaning. “Wallace? I have ever remembered our earliest friendship with great fondness, and considered the enmity between us as a natural product of jealousy between silly women. I know you are not jealous, but we foolish women, myself especially, I was always—troubled—by Serenity and your love for her.” I watched as a flush rose under his collar. Perfect. “I believe, no, I hope, that you do not hold that against me.” He smiled. Much, I thought, like the lipless grin of a snake. He leaned toward me and sipped the claret. I continued. “You have heard, have you not, that my husband has been arrested?”
“I have.” He stiffened and sat more upright in his chair.
“I know it is too forward of me, Wallace, too assuming upon our past friendship, but I hoped I could prevail upon you to ask his release. He is a very ordinary man, you see. Without your complexities of aristocracy. I was young, and without you, and without you I was heartbroken. He seemed good at heart and honest, and hardworking enough to give me security. Security is important to a woman, for we have no honest means of making it ourselves.” Then I made my boldest move yet. With the same movement that I had seen Margaret use to unmask many a farce and loosen many a tongue, I raised my right hand and artlessly let it fall upon Wallace’s wrist as if we were long in the habit of touching each other. As I did, I opened my mouth to continue my speech.
Wallace’s eyes closed lazily and he cocked his head. “Save your wiles, Resolute MacLammond, for you are not good at it. You think you have come here to seduce me into letting a criminal go? Do you think you are that desirable any longer?”
I pulled my hand back as if I had been stung, but Cullah was at stake. I was determined to continue the flattery until he threw me out. “I meant only friendship, not seduction. Perhaps I misread what I thought was compassion in your eyes.”
Wallace lunged at me, tossing aside his glass as he did, and taking my head in both his hands, he kissed me, pressing my lips apart with his so that I felt assaulted by him. When he stopped, he asked, “What would you do, Resolute, to have your man back at your hearth and in your bed?”