Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(2)

London, 1746

The screaming wove through Alec Mackenzie’s dreams and jerked him from sleep.

For a breath he was back on the battlefield, men keening as they died. Soldiers shoved swords into his clansmen, his friends—never mind they were injured and begging for mercy.

Another breath, and the noise resolved itself into the wail of a child who didn’t understand the pain of new teeth.

Alec wrenched himself out of bed, his nightshirt slipping from one large shoulder, his dark red hair tumbling into his eyes. He righted the nightshirt and stumbled into the chilly hall, not worried about trivial things like dressing gown and slippers.

No one stirred in the upper floors of the dark house on Grosvenor Square. This was one of the square’s larger mansions, six stories high, four rooms wide, and several rooms deep. Alec’s chamber was one floor down from the attic, his hostess pretending that Alec’s position wasn’t quite that of a servant.

Alec’s daughter, Jenny, on the other hand, had to keep to a room in the attics, lest his hostess’ guests, the cream of London’s intellectual society and patrons of the arts, discover that a child actually stayed in the house.

One-year-old Jenny didn’t care where she slept, but the positioning of the rooms made it a job to rush to Jenny’s side when she needed her da’.

Alec shouldered his way to the back stairs and hurried up a flight. His feet, hardened from running over Highland hills, never felt the roughness of the wooden stairs.

He bolted into Jenny’s nursery, cursing when he didn’t see the nursemaid Lady Flora had hired. The poor woman needed to sleep, of course, but she was snoring in the next room through Jenny’s screams, which were winding up to a pure Highlander howl. Alec’s youngest brother, Mal, had screeched like that.

“All right, wee one,” Alec whispered in Erse as he lifted his daughter into his arms, her soft warmth against his cheek. “Papa’s here.”

Jenny continued to cry, but she turned to Alec’s shoulder and snuggled down, recognizing her father. Alec held her close, snatching up the bottle of medicine the nursemaid had concocted for Jenny’s teething. Swore by it, the woman did.

Alec worked off the cork one-handed and flinched when the acrid stench of pure gin curled into his nose.

“Bloody hell.” Alec threw the bottle into the smoldering fire, where it splintered, sending a spurt of blue flame up the chimney. “Well, lass, we’ll have to find ye another nursemaid in the morning, won’t we? One who won’t poison ye with this filth.”

In the meantime, there was nothing to soothe Jenny’s pain, no other food, drink, or medicine near.

The room was cold as well. The small fire was here at Alec’s insistence—Lady Flora’s austere housekeeper saw no reason to waste fuel on a babe.

Alec lifted Jenny’s blankets from her cot, wrapped her up, and carried her down the stairs to his own bedchamber. He laid her in the bed and then folded his big frame into a chair that he dragged next to it, not wanting to take the chance of rolling on her in his sleep. She was so tiny, and Alec was a bloody great Highlander.

Jenny warmed and calmed, Alec’s big hand on her back, and she slept. Alec watched her, knowing that if anyone found Jenny here, he’d be standing before his hostess while she lifted her nose in the air and reminded him exactly how dangerous was his mission and that he should have left his child in France.

His daughter was silent now, sleeping in innocent happiness. Alec pulled a quilt over himself and drifted off, his slumber not quite so innocent and in no way happy.

But Jenny was safe, all that mattered for the moment. Now to make sure the rest of his family was as well.



“You’re late,” Lady Flora, Dowager Marchioness of Ellesmere, said as Lady Celia Fotheringhay hastened into Lady Flora’s private salon, Celia’s portfolio sliding dangerously from under her arm.

Celia had never been in this room before. Whenever she called upon Lady Flora, she was only allowed into the grand salon, which was two stories high, gilded and painted within an inch of its life, and stuffed with important people.

The right important people, Celia amended—the intellectuals and high-minded of the ton who supported the Whigs in their power and glory.

Celia had also never been inside this house without her mother, the formidable Duchess of Crenshaw. Lady Flora was said to eat innocent young ladies for breakfast, and so an older, stronger woman was a necessary guard.

For this visit, Celia was on her own and shown into a compact, sunny room on the first floor. This chamber was no less ostentatious than the grand salon, albeit on a smaller scale. The audience took place, alarmingly, at breakfast, and for an entirely different reason than Celia’s previous visits.

Lady Flora was forty but her slim body and unlined face compared to a woman of twenty. She wore her golden hair pulled back into a simple knot, and her light blue eyes held as much chill as her voice.

She looked up at Celia from the remains of a repast. Her empty plate was whisked away by a silent footman, while another equally silent footman placed a cup by her elbow. Lady Flora poured thick coffee into it, the trickle of liquid breaking the delicate hush.

Celia’s portfolio chose that moment to slip to the floor with a clatter. The clasp broke, and drawings of misty hills, vases of flowers, and Celia’s family cat floated across the carpet.

“Drat,” Celia said under her breath. The portfolio was awkward—she was always dropping the blasted thing.