Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(69)
“Hops, eh?” Alec asked. “Are you a brewer?”
Celia dimpled in amusement. “Of course not. But farmers on my father’s land grow hops, and I am curious by nature. My brother and I made nuisances of ourselves when we were younger, and the oast house workers showed us everything, likely to keep an eye on us.”
And a good landlord knew exactly what his tenants grew and how it was processed and when crops were good or bad. The same way a good laird helped when times were hard and shared the rewards with his men when times were easy.
Alec sharply missed the life at Kilmorgan, when he and his brothers worked alongside their tenants and celebrated when the work was done. They would have that back, Alec vowed. One day.
They traveled a dozen miles in total, spending the night at Wrotham, which was near Celia’s father’s estate and not far from Sevenoaks. Celia went to their private chamber quickly, Alec noted, now worried she’d be recognized.
They kept to their chambers for meals and sleep, and left again in the morning, heading for the last house on Mrs. Reynolds’s list. This was a castle, or an imitation one, near Shoreham.
They entered another turnpike road, and the coachman handed over the shilling and sixpence for their coach and four horses. Wits in London liked to say that while highwaymen robbed you only once, turnpikes kept on robbing you, sanctioned by Acts of Parliament.
Plans were in motion to extend turnpikes and wider roads up into Scotland, another attempt to tame the Highlanders. They’d tried this with the Wade roads after the 1715 uprising, but this time, Alec reflected, they wouldn’t stop until the Highlands were paved and its inhabitants beggared or driven out.
They came upon the ruin of a real castle, now a lump of stone with one tower still standing. Alec was surprised to see even that, as local men would have absconded with the stones—why leave perfectly good building material to disintegrate in the rain?
The man who’d built the manor house just south of this must have tried to emulate the castle—the house was red brick and rambling, with false turrets here and there poking up over the wall around it.
“Home of the Tate family,” Celia said. “The Earl of Chesfield, one of my father’s friends. The earl has strong anti-Jacobite feelings and helped my father fund his regiment.”
“A good candidate for holding Scotsmen prisoner, then,” Alec said, tasting sourness.
Mrs. Reynolds calmly watched the brick crenellations of the walls flow by. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Careful observation will help us at present.”
“I won’t go bursting in waving my claymore, if that’s your worry,” Alec said. “But if I find out they’re holding Will, I’ll get him out of there, whatever it takes.”
“I am certain you will,” Mrs. Reynolds said in cool tones.
He noted Celia’s look, which held understanding. In that moment, Alec realized he was no longer alone. The emptiness of his existence since Angus and Duncan had died began to fill again.
The road went past the house to the lands behind it. The Earl of Chesfield’s estate didn’t have a grand orangery or ornate gardens, but it did have an extensive park and woods that ran to the end of the property. At the edge of these woods was an older house, possibly the original manor before the current earl had built his monstrosity.
The old house had two floors, the ground floor with small windows closed by heavy shutters, a relic of the times when a home was a fortress against one’s neighbors. The upper floor contained a row of dormer windows, also shuttered.
The mists that wound through the trees, blurring the light brick and black roof, was picturesque to an artist, disquieting to a passerby. To Alec, the house was merely a pile of stones that might hide his brother.
Alec opened his sketchbook to a blank page and drew the scene in quick, bold lines, adding in the trees that grew up to its walls. The house must have once lain in a clearing, but time and neglect had let the woods return and overrun it. All the better for secrecy?
He did not like the feeling he got from the place, a miasma of isolation and uneasiness. Difficult to believe they were a mere twenty-five miles or so from London, and very few miles from the thriving spa at Tunbridge Wells. This place was eerie, lonely.
When they emerged from the woods, the narrow road ran down a short hill to a chapel that lay in ruins, its roof gaping to the sky. Most likely it was a remnant of a monastery or nunnery that had been closed and gutted by Henry the Eighth when he’d had his tiff with the Catholic Church. Again, most of the stones had been carried away by locals, but enough remained of the abandoned chapel to add to the forlorn note of this part of the journey.
They circled back south to Shorham, where they put up at yet another inn.
Celia and Mrs. Reynolds descended and Alec moved to speak to the coachman, at the same time a man in a scarlet coat, a soldier of some regiment, came out of the taproom and into the yard, settling his hat as he made swiftly for the gate.
Celia’s eyes widened and she swung around, quickly bowing her head and staring fixedly at the coach’s wheels. The man gave them an uninterested glance as he went past, finding no significance in the travelers.
Alec had begun to relax when the soldier halted. The man remained in place, his back to them, as though thinking something over, and then he swung around. He was young, with hair the same color as Celia’s, a frown creasing his face as he looked her over.