Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(63)
Alec watched her, his eyes quiet. She wished she could make him believe in her father’s kindness, but she conceded her father might know who was keeping his brother prisoner—if Will Mackenzie was still alive—even if the duke wasn’t aware of the significance of the information.
When Celia finished her breakfast she asked Josette for pen, ink, paper, and jar of sand, and after Glenna brought the things, Celia composed the missive right there at the table. She wrote swiftly, sprinkled the sand onto the ink, shook it off, and handed the letter to Alec.
He didn’t reach for it. “I don’t need to read your post, love. I trust you not to tell him ye married a traitor.”
“Please.” Celia laid the paper before him. “I want no secrets between us.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed, but he pulled the letter to him and read. Celia had kept her message simple: Dearest Papa, I am safe, dare I say happy? I am married. Mr. Finn, Lady Flora’s guest, saved me from a dire situation and protected my reputation by making me his wife last night. We were married by the Bishop of Arden, by special license.
Mr. Finn is a gentleman, and you need have no worry for me. You once promised me you’d give me your blessing if I found a man I esteemed and liked. I ask this blessing now, and your forgiveness.
We will withdraw for a while, until society calms from this interesting on dit, if they even notice what the eccentric Lady Celia has done now. I will miss you, dear Papa, but one day we will reunite, and I can express my fondness for you that these words are inadequate to convey.
God keep you.
Your loving daughter, Celia
Alec’s eyes were soft as he handed the letter back to her. “I hope someday I will be worthy of what you write.”
“You already are, else I would not have written it.” Celia folded the paper lengthwise, then in thirds and wrote her father’s direction on the outside. Josette brought her wax, which Celia melted with a candle’s flame. The signet with which she usually sealed her letters was at home in her writing table, so she simply dribbled wax over the crease to hold it closed.
“Can someone deliver this?” she asked Josette. “I have to confess I’ve never sent anything through the post myself. My father francs all my letters and puts them on a tray for the butler. There they mysteriously disappear and find their way to their recipients.”
“Of course,” Josette said, amused. “I’ll have a lad run it there for you.” She glanced at the direction. “Grosvenor Square. My, my.” She turned to Alec. “Trust a Mackenzie to fly so high.”
“The flying isn’t the difficulty, lass. It’s the falling and crashing. We do that often enough.”
“Aye, I hope Willie hasn’t done so.” Josette’s teasing fled, and she sat down heavily. “His friends have had no word?”
Alec shook his head. “I met with a Glaswegian who’d heard of men being held in a house, and then Mrs. Reynolds, Lady Flora’s companion, told me the same story.”
“What Glaswegian?” Josette asked quickly. “He might know more.”
“Not this lad. We were attacked, the pair of us—by thieves, his enemies, who knows? And he got himself killed.”
Celia’s gasp made both Alec and Josette jerk to look at her, as though they’d forgotten her presence. “So that is what you and Padruig were talking about,” she said to Alec. “And why you were all battered that morning. I knew it was more than a disagreement in a tavern.”
Alec nodded, looking unhappy. “I carried the Glaswegian to a church, left him on their doorstep, and rang the bell at the vicarage. I hope they did right by him. Couldn’t have left the poor man on the bank of the Thames to be picked over by thieves.”
Alec’s sadness caught at Celia’s heart. Here was a man who’d had to make hard decisions, and was still making them.
“I’m certain they took care of him,” Celia said. Dead beggars were put into pauper’s graves, she knew from her charity work, but at least prayers were said for their souls. The vicar would likely assume this was another such poor vagrant. “I am sorry.”
“Not your fault, lass. London’s full of villains. The entire world is, truth to tell. Now to wrest my brother away from them.”
“How?” Josette asked.
Celia noted the despair in her eyes. She was extremely worried about Will, and Celia remembered what Glenna had said the night before—It’s his brother Mum fancies. Celia regarded her with sympathy. It was also clear that Josette did not want to admit what she felt.
Alec drew a blank sheet of paper toward him and picked up her pen. “I saw a house, east of Cambridge, with a long outbuilding, abandoned.” He sketched a rough map with London and Cambridge, and an X where the house must be. He made X’s in two other places, one in Kent, heart-stoppingly close to where Celia’s father’s estate would be, and one north and east of that, in Essex.
Alec then drew the outline of a house, filling in windows, trees, sky, grounds, scrub, all in easy, competent lines. Celia watched the scene come alive as though she peered at it through a window.
“This is the house Mrs. Reynolds and I drove by,” Alec said when he finished. “We didn’t see much of anyone, but there was a sentry, and that road was a lonely one. I haven’t seen the other two houses yet, but I intend to.”