Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(55)

“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.