Celia raised her head. The anguish in Alec’s eyes pierced her, making her want to reach to him and wipe it away.

But his words were astounding. “My father? How on earth would he know where your brother is? Do mean your brother went missing after the battle of Culloden?”

“No—Will escaped—he made it to France. Then for no reason I can understand, he returned to Scotland and—was captured.”

The bleakness Celia had seen in the back of Alec’s eyes suddenly made sense. He feared his brother was dead, had the terrible emptiness of not knowing what had happened to him. Worried he might never know.

But the notion that Celia’s father, her kindhearted, rather browbeaten father, knew the whereabouts of Alec’s brother was highly unlikely.

“My father has nothing to do with Jacobite prisoners,” she tried to explain. “He did attend some trials, but the glee with which the Scots were being prosecuted upset him, and he ceased going.”

Alec shook his head. “Your dad is in charge of a regiment—the Duke of Crenshaw’s Brigade. They escorted Scots prisoners back to London before the bulk of the regiment was sent to fight in France.”

“My father pays for a regiment,” Celia corrected him. “He’s only nominally in charge. He leaves the running of it to others. At heart my father is a peace-loving man—he doesn’t like war.”

Alec’s eyes glinted. “Nor do I. But war happens. The duke might not give the orders, and he might avoid prisoner trials so he doesn’t upset his delicate constitution, but he knows. There’s a world of knowledge in your da’s head.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Celia said. “But there is an easy way to discover if he knows anything about your brother. I can ask him.”

“No, lass.” Alec’s voice was sharp. “What are you going to tell him? I’ve married a dead Highlander, Father. Have ye squirreled away his brother somewhere? Oh, the brother’s a traitor and supposed to be dead too.”

“Don’t be silly. Now you have to trust me. I will think of something …”

“Ye won’t speak to him at all. Ye eloped with me, and now you’re going to France with my daughter to live with my family. And there’s an end to it.”

Celia’s temper rose. “I am, am I?” She’d learned to practice meekness with her mother in order to have some peace—the whole family did—but Celia was far from the timid rabbit others believed her. “I might have agreed to obey you in the wedding vows, but not if your orders are unreasonable.”

Alec scowled. “I don’t remember the bishop reading that part of it.”

“Well, such a clause ought to be in there. I believe in a marriage of partners, not the mismatches so many make to keep power and wealth in the family. I believe a wife should be a helpmeet, not an appendage to put an heir and a spare in the nursery, and then do as she pleases. Lady Flora told me this makes me a romantic, but very well. I am a romantic …”

She trailed off before Alec’s fierce stare.

“God’s balls, is that what an English marriage is? A wife to pump out babies and then ignore and be ignored? No wonder so many Englishmen are weedy and pale.”

“And all Scottish men are robust?” Celia returned. “Shall I be a Scottish bride and take up my claymore and fight alongside my laird?”

“’Tis not so common anymore.” Alec spoke in a forced voice as he tried and failed to lighten the conversation. “Though the wife of the Mackintosh clan chief raised her own Jacobite regiment during the Uprising. When her husband, who fought for King George, was captured at Prestonpans and sent to her as a prisoner, she saluted him and said, Your servant, Captain. He bowed back and said, Your servant, Colonel.”

Celia had heard that tale, which her father had told her with great amusement. “You see? But do not worry. I’ll not lead a regiment against you. I can promise you that.”

Alec gave her a dark look. “Don’t promise. ’Tis a hard thing, keeping promises.”

Celia curled her fingers around the heavy ring. “I already fulfilled one—remember? You asked me to trust you. And here I am. Please, Alec, let me stay and help. I couldn’t bear being away from you, not knowing your fate. You’re my husband now.”

Alec’s gaze was piercing. “Aye, and you’re my wife. I promised to take care of you, as long as we both shall live.”

“And I plighted my troth to you. My honor, my loyalty. I will help you, my Alec. Whether you like it or not.”

Alec continued to scowl as they wove through the stream of carriages on the Strand, the traffic heavy in spite of the darkness and fog.

Then a sudden grin broke over his face, like the sun tearing through storm clouds. “Damn it, lass, I’m thinking you’ll make me a bonnie wife. And that I made a wise choice.”

He rapped on the roof of the coach. A tiny window opened in the top, a patch of the coachman’s face appearing. “Guv?”

“Take me to the other address I gave you.”

The eye narrowed. “Right you are, guv.” The window snapped shut.

Immediately, the coach halted, backed, and turned. Shouts and curses sounded on the street and Celia heard the noise of wheels scraping the cobbles. Sparks flew up, brightening the darkness. Once the carriage righted, they began moving back the way they’d come, heading for Charing Cross.

“Where are we going now?” Celia watched tall houses and black shadows flow past in the night.

“Not to France,” Alec said and then fell silent, apparently not about to part with more information.

Celia leaned into him again, uncertainty washing coldness through her. She’d taken an irrevocable step tonight, pledging herself to a stranger from a foreign land, an outlaw in her country.

He was also a warm, firm-bodied man who wrapped his arm around her and held her close, his lips brushing the top of her head. Celia sank into him and let herself, for this moment, feel safe.

* * *

Will Mackenzie knew people from around the globe—he had friends from China to the Americas, Africa to the East Indies. He occupied a world Alec didn’t understand, but Will made connections with men and women from all strata of life, regardless of whose country was at war with whose, and remained friends with them for years.

Alec knew plenty of people himself, but where Will kept to those who traded information, Alec’s circle was in the art world. Not so much the patrons, such as those who graced Lady Flora’s salons, but the artists themselves, their models, their assistants—those who grubbed so the patrons could fill their drawing rooms with magnificent paintings.

The woman who owned the house Alec took Celia to had become an acquaintance of both brothers. Will had met Josette Oswald when he was looking for information on the British armies swarming the Continent. Alec had met her a decade ago when she’d been an artist’s model in Amsterdam, sitting for painters keen to be the next Rembrandt or Van Dyke. Alec had hired her a time or two, and he and Josette had become friends.

Friends only, never lovers. Whether Josette had been Will’s lover, Alec didn’t know. Will was loud about visiting brothels or taking mistresses for the fun of it, but any relationship important to him he kept secret.

Alec had no idea of Josette’s nationality. Her first name was French, her last English, but she called herself Mrs. Oswald, so her maiden name could be of another origin entirely. Or Josette might not have had a husband at all and had simply appended the “Mrs.” to her name to give herself respectability, especially after she’d had a child. She spoke French fluently, but her English had a decided London cant. She also spoke Dutch, Russian, and various dialects of German.

When Alec had met Josette, he’d been a lad of eighteen who’d run away to Amsterdam and then France to learn painting. She’d been young herself, a great beauty, but already with a five-year-old child.

Now Josette was near to thirty and running to plumpness, but she still had the beauty in her round face and glossy black hair that all those artists had tried to capture, on canvas and off. Josette had evaded them all.

She met them in the cramped hall of a house in a lane south of the Strand, the noisome smell of the river seeping to them. Sounds above and in other rooms told Alec her boarding house was full—Josette always pulled in good business.

“I see you decided to risk my hospitality after all,” she said as she closed the front door. She looked over Celia in her now-rumpled costume, then Alec in his Highland regimental uniform. “Padruig isn’t staying, is he? Only, he frightens my cook—on purpose, the dratted man.”

“No, he’s off to tell Gair he’ll have to wait longer for his payment,” Alec said. “We’re staying in London a bit.”

“I see that. You must be the poor thing he married.” Josette took in Celia with her shrewd dark eyes. “You’ll be wanting a change of clothing, I’ll wager. Lord Alec sent for them, and they’re upstairs in your bedchamber. You’ll want to sort through them—you know how men are. Never pack the right things. My daughter will help you. Glenna!” She called up the stairs. “Come down and assist her ladyship. Before the second coming, please.”

“Aye, I heard ya.”

Down the stairs came a girl with coltish arms and legs, as tall as her mother now. Glenna, the mite who’d been five years old when Alec had painted in the Netherlands, was now a sunny-faced girl of fifteen, already a beauty like her mother.

Glenna curtsied before Celia with respect. “This way, my lady. Mum’s fixed a chamber all nice for ya. I’ll take your hat—can’t have it squashed, can we?”

So chattering, she led Celia up the stairs, slowing her exuberant stride so Celia wouldn’t fall behind. Celia glanced once at Alec, who gave her a nod, then she gathered her skirts and skimmed up the stairs after Glenna.

“Mum’s been worried all day whether you’d come or not,” Glenna said as they went. “Lord Alec couldn’t decide whether to stash you here or rush you to Paris. Paris is ever so much nicer, but it’s a long journey, with soldiers all over the countryside in France, Mum says.”

Her voice faded as she and Celia left the landing, cut off by the closing of a door.

Alec let out his breath. “Thank you, Josette. This is kind of you.”

Josette folded her arms over her plain brown bodice, a fichu like the ones Celia wore concealing her bosom. “Kindness has nothing to do with it. I’m worried sick about Willie. You haven’t found him yet?”

“No,” Alec said glumly. “I have places to look, but no, no sign of him.”

He thought of the grim, cold house in the country, and knew he’d be back there, risking his life to find who, if anyone, was in it.

Josette flushed and looked away, her eyes moist, but when she turned back, she’d composed herself. “Did you marry that pretty thing to help in the search? Daughter of the Duke of Crenshaw, eh? Is the marriage even valid?”

Her expression was disapproving. Josette, who’d have done anything to keep her daughter fed, including stealing secrets from a king to hand them to Will, now frowned at Alec, certain he was using Celia and would discard her when finished.

“I married her to take her away from bloody people happy to make use of her,” Alec growled. “I tried to send her to m’ family, but she wouldn’t go.”

Josette nodded. “Wise of her. I’ve met the might of your family, and it’s enough to make even a strong woman flee into the night. Give her time to grow accustomed to you.”

“I don’t think all the time in the world will do that. The Mackenzies are overbearing bastards. Ye’ve not heard a word from him?”

“No.” Josette lost her smile, fear in her eyes. “Not a dicky bird.”

Alec had no idea what Will was to Josette, or she to him. Will left his lovers with ease, and they either remained on good terms or chased him off waving their fists.

But perhaps Josette had been different. She certainly wasn’t the same sort of woman Will usually took up with.

Alec gentled his tone. “We’ll find him.”

The tears that dropped to Josette’s cheeks glistened in the light of a single candle on the hall table. “They’ve probably already killed him. Declaring he was Charles Stuart might have kept him alive until he was taken to a garrison, but once someone in charge knew he wasn’t anywhere close to being Prince Charlie, I’ve no doubt they bayoneted him there and then.”

Alec’s mind too easily pictured things. He imagined Will, rage in his eyes as his bravado fell away, his glare that changed to agony as the bayonet ran into his heart. Then the life would drain from his face and he’d fall back, bloody and dead, as the soldiers laughed.

Alec clenched his jaw so hard it ached. “We won’t let them.” He knew he should comfort Josette, but he couldn’t move, frozen to the bone. “We’ll find him, damn his hide. And then we’ll give him hell for worrying us so.”

Josette didn’t smile. She gave Alec a nod, but it was clear she didn’t believe Will was still alive.

He had to be. Alec clung to the hope. If he gave up that hope, Will would truly be dead and gone, and Alec couldn’t face a future that stark.

* * *

“Even your nightdress is beautiful.” Glenna lifted the thin cotton gown from the trunk and laid it upon the bed, smoothing its skirt. “What must it be like to have such clothes?”

Celia had never given her gowns much thought, having been used to sumptuous fabric and the best seamstresses all her life. She had friends who fussed over their clothing and raged if even one stitch wasn’t to their liking, but as long as Celia didn’t look a mess, she was happy. A quick glance in a mirror or letting a maid straighten a skirt had been enough for her.

But now she looked down at the crumpled, soiled white velvets of her costume and cringed. She’d just been married in the wrinkled garments of a clown.

“I’ve never been to a masquerade,” Glenna said, not noticing Celia’s discomfiture. She unhooked the bodice from Celia’s skirts, drew off her stomacher and corset cover, and began to unlace her stays. “Mum would never let me. Says men and women who have to pretend to be others for fun are right fools. Says masquerades are excuses to paw at one another’s husbands and wives.”

Her mother, the beautiful landlady who clearly knew Alec well, wasn’t wrong. Celia’s mother’s masquerades were gatherings of decorum, but Celia had attended others where shepherds chased masked shepherdesses into darkened rooms, and shadows under trees in a garden were filled with people not chatting or dancing.

“Your mother is quite lovely,” Celia said. Both Glenna and Josette had dark hair and eyes, but the porcelain pale skin of the north. “As are you. You look much like her.”

Glenna shrugged. “You’re kind, but I know I’m a stick with my hair everywhere.” She began to unpin Celia’s braids, unwinding them from their tight coil. The loosening of clothes and hair felt good, relaxing on this mad night.

“That is what you might see in a mirror,” Celia said with conviction. “I see a very pretty young lady.”

“Aw, ain’t ye sweet. Mum was an artists’ model when she were younger. Took off her kit to let men paint her picture. I ask you …”

An artists’ model—this explained how Alec had met her. Which meant Mrs. Oswald must have taken off her kit for Alec. Celia tried to decide, through her exhaustion and bemusement, how she felt about that.

She remembered how she’d reflected that artists’ models must live exciting lives when Alec had talked about them on her first day of lessons, and how he’d said they sat for him simply because they wanted to be paid. Mrs. Oswald, as beautiful as she was, seemed a sensible woman, at least at first glance, not scandalous at all.

“If you’re wondering, my lady, Lord Alec ain’t my father,” Glenna went on with disarming frankness. “I don’t know who is, but it ain’t Lord Alec. I was already toddling around before Mum met him.” She pulled a brush through Celia’s hair. “Just thought I’d set your mind at rest. It’s his brother Mum fancies. Only never tell her I said that.”

“Never.” Celia met Glenna’s gaze in the mirror and smiled. The girl was easy to like.

Glenna kept up her rapid and cheerful chatter as she helped Celia into her nightdress, but Celia faded back from it, too many things jostling for her attention. Her life had changed tonight, but whether for good or ill remained to be seen.

Yet, she couldn’t be terrified. Something had woken in her, defiance and hope, as though chains had fallen away.

She belonged to Alec now, by law, but Celia couldn’t believe that a man who’d held his child so tenderly could be cruel to her. Most gentlemen barely acknowledged they had children at all, especially when they were babes. They didn’t hold them, bounce them in their arms, and worry about their teething troubles.

At last Celia was ready for bed, her face washed, hair combed and braided. The bedcovers had been folded back, and Glenna competently lifted them so Celia could slide beneath.

The bed had been warmed—Celia’s foot touched a cloth-wrapped brick that radiated heat. Glenna lingered for a time, shaking out Celia’s white velvet gown and straightening things on the dressing table. At last she departed, sending Celia a grin that was much too knowing for her age.

Celia was married. With all marriage entailed. Her heart hammered, every footfall in the stairwell outside her door magnified.

Would he come? Alec had married her to keep her safe, he’d said, to remove her from the game.

Did that mean in name only? Or would Alec expect his right to her in bed?

Celia shivered. Her mother had explained all about what men wanted from their wives, in explicit detail. The duchess had not wanted Celia to be an ignorant maiden, she said, and told her that the quicker a man was pleased, the more quickly he left her alone.

Lie still and let him do whatever he likes, no matter how repugnant it might be to you, was the duchess’s sage advice. You are there to bear him a son and nothing more.

Celia didn’t want to think about her mother and her disparaging words. She wanted to think about Alec, his breath-stealing kisses, his fine body, his strong hands that could render a beautiful picture in a few deft lines.

Footsteps moved up and down the stairs, some hurried, one tread heavy and slow—a man’s. Celia stilled, but whoever it was kept moving, climbing higher into the house.

The candles burned to stubs. Fire warmed the small room, the night dying into silence. Celia determined to stay awake, to wait for Alec, her fingers tingling as she planned every movement she’d make when he came to her.

Those thoughts loosened her body and let lassitude take over. The next thing Celia knew, she was rising from a deep sleep, sunlight pouring through the window.

She became aware of a weight on the mattress next to her. Celia turned her head to see Alec Mackenzie stretched beside her on the bed in kilt and shirt, his arm flung over his face, a soft snore issuing from his mouth.