Elizabeth Mayne - Man Of The Mist

“Ha! I’ll be bound! So Tullie was right. You are to town. Get up, lass! Come down here and unlock the door. Be quick about it, Izzy!”

“Izzy!” Elizabeth repeated his last word in a harsh whisper, instantly drawing back inside the window. Her heart skipped a beat, then jumped to an escalated cadence. Only one ne’er-do-well in the entire British Isles had ever dared to call her by that dreadful remnant from the nursery in public. Evan MacGregor!

“Eh?” Krissy cupped her hand to her ear, leaning her white face closer to Elizabeth’s. “What did he say? Who is it?”

Elizabeth ignored the question as she swallowed and sought her courage. She laid trembling hands on the damp windowsill to steady herself, leaning out once more. This time, when she spoke, her voice rang with the cool disdain of the bred-in-the-bone aristocrat. “Tell me one good reason why I should unlock the door of my house for the likes of you, Evan MacGregor!”

“What?” Krissy gasped, and laid her hand over her heart.

“Don’t argue with me, Elizabeth Murray! Get down here!” Evan stepped onto the highest step, deliberately placing himself in the circle of lamplight. She caught a glimpse of her brother’s red hair as Evan raised his arm in a furious gesture. “Unless you prefer that I heave Tullibardine’s bloody body in the bin out back. Make up your mind quick! The marquess has been shot, and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. As bad as he’s wounded, he won’t last long, left out in this weather.”

“Shot?” Elizabeth cried. She backed out of the window so quickly she banged her head on the sash. So did Krissy.

“Shot?” Krissy parroted. “I dinna see Tullibardine.”

Elizabeth had. Her brother, John Murray, the marquess of Tullibardine, had become recognizable the moment Evan MacGregor moved away from him. Tullie slumped heavily against the support of the third man.

“What in the name of creation is going on in here? Are you trying to wake every soul in the house?” Amalia Murray demanded as she imperiously swept inside her younger sister’s chamber. “Elizabeth, who have you been shouting at on the street? Do you realize what time it is?”

“Hang the time!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she bolted past her sister. “Tullie’s been shot! Krissy, make certain Robbie’s sleep has not been disturbed, then come downstairs at once to help me.”

“What?” Amalia gasped. She stood stock-still, stunned, as Elizabeth ran past her to the staircase.

“What do you mean, Tullie’s been shot?” Amalia snatched up her hems, following. “Oh, no! Dear God, no! Elizabeth, come back and tell me it isn’t true!”

Elizabeth wasted no time getting down to the entrance foyer. But at the doorway her hands turned inept and clumsy, fumbling with the locks. Amalia caught up to her as Elizabeth swung the door wide open to the three men huddled on the step in the bone-chilling mist.

“What has happened?” Amalia exclaimed.

Elizabeth stood frozen on the doorsill, locked in a horror that went deeper than any life-threatening alarm raised for her brother. Some other portion of her mind recognized the grey breeks and scarlet jacket of a Highland volunteer cloaking Evan’s tall body. Her eyes came in full contact with his, and all sense of time and reality ended.

The panic surging into her veins wasn’t for the condition of her oldest brother. An unvoiced scream strangled underneath the tight compression of the fingers sealing her lips.

Evan! God help her, Evan sported the well-cut jacket of an officer of Graham’s Grey Breeks. He towered over Tullie, her brother. The Highlander’s jaw was set, his mouth a grim, dark and austere line that caught the night’s deepest shadows. His eyes locked with Elizabeth’s. She ceased breathing and thinking, and stood blocking the door.

“God save us!” Amalia whispered a fearful prayer behind Elizabeth. “John, what have you done?”

Elizabeth’s nostrils flared as the mist rolled past Evan and washed her burning cheeks. With it came the tang of burnt whiskey mingled with odors off the streets, horses, sweat, blood and dank wool.

“Move, Izzy!” Evan commanded, in a voice grown deeper over long years. It touched her center, glazing her soul like the mists that swept around him and sank quickly to her darkest primordial core. Evan’s eyes remained inscrutable, sharp and hard. The mist shrouded him as he came ominously closer, her brother’s arm clamped across his wide shoulders. Stupidly, Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor, unable to make any part of her body move under her own volition.

“I said move, lass!” One hand snaked out, touching the silk covering her waist. It flattened and pressed intimately into yielding flesh, urging her backward, out of his way.

“Elizabeth!” Amalia’s voice roughened with a fine edge of fright. She caught Elizabeth’s arm, yanking her off the threshold, out of the way of the Highlanders bearing her brother John, the marquess of Tullibardine, into his father’s house.

Glowing lamps in the foyer illuminated the gap in John’s greatcoat. Elizabeth partially roused from the dazzled dream in which she was trapped and dragged her eyes from Evan to stare in mute horror at the wash of scarlet staining the marquess’s rumpled linen and cravat. Amalia gasped out loud.

Shaking herself free of the shock of Evan MacGregor’s return, Elizabeth gulped. “I’ll fetch Dr. Morgan.”

MacGregor caught her arm as Elizabeth reached for the cord to summon the servants, commanding, “No doctors, and no servants, Izzy. Corporal Butter can tend to the marquess’s injury. There’s not a better man in the regiment for bullet wounds. Amalia, fetch hot water, linens, and whatever carbolic you have. Don’t wake anyone else in the house. Izzy, lock that door.”

“You can’t come barging in this house giving orders, Evan MacGregor!” Elizabeth sparked, recovering her wits.

Evan’s dark eyes bored deep into hers, sharp and hard, like the eyes of a man sighting the barrel of a pistol on the heart of his enemy.

“Do as you’re told,” he commanded. He released her arm, but the impression of his strong fingers gripping her wrist remained as he turned to deal with the older Amalia Murray’s sputtering protests. She looked on the verge of vapors, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth in horror. Krissy hurried down the stairs and quietly slipped an arm around Lady Amalia to support her, lest she faint.

“Amalia!” Tullibardine rasped. He caught hold of the newel post for support. “Do exactly as MacGregor orders!”

“Well, I never!” Amalia roused herself to the authority she was well versed in wielding with all of her siblings, including her eldest brother, the marquess. “John, I will have some explanation, this very moment!”

“No, you won’t!” Evan MacGregor cut Amalia short. “You’ll get an explanation once we’ve got Tullie’s bleeding under control.”

Amalia started to protest that order, but this time Evan MacGregor shut off her tirade before it could begin. “Woman, the marquess’s life is in more danger this minute than his bloody reputation. If you cannot be of good assistance to him, then kindly stay the hell out of our way!”

Without pause, he turned and took Tullie’s arm off the newel post and helped him mount the stairs, leaving Amalia’s and Krissy’s jaws sagging in shock.

Elizabeth blinked, unable to take her eyes from Evan MacGregor’s commanding back. Where had he learned to exert such overwhelming authority? Why was he, of all people, here? Her throat squeezed dangerously. Her knees felt as wobbly as ninepins hit solidly by a stone bowling ball.

Krissy had the sense to close the door, barring the cold and the wet from entering the house. She dipped in a deep and reverent curtsy. “So tha’s the MacGregor,” the servant said under her breath.