The nurse nodded.

"You should enjoy this holiday," Betty said. "Mr. Douglas said you were to be treated like a valued guest in his absence."

"Then I shall," Jeanne said, feeling herself warm at the comment. She left the room with Betty, deliberately not glancing at the portrait again.

Charles Talbot made his way to the Hartley home, returning the silverware he'd repaired. The bill was

also discreetly attached, and he fervently hoped the housekeeper was prompt in paying it.

His most important reason for this errand, however, was to meet with the Comte's daughter. If he was fortunate, he could convince her to allow him to handle the sale of the ruby without involving her father.

Five years ago, Talbot had married a lovely woman, a widow who was as charming as she had been wealthy. She had sickened and died a year ago, leaving him a rich man. Or so he'd thought. The interview with her solicitor had been startlingly simple and disconcerting.

"You're not listed in her will," he'd said, looking too amused for Charles's peace of mind."I was her husband," he'd protested."She left her estate to her sister.""But she can't do that." But to his amazement, Charles had discovered that she could.These last years had not been prosperous ones. With the influx of French emigres, he'd been hard-pressed to charge as much as he had previously for one of his designs. He'd had to dismiss two of his apprentices, and kept one only half days. Even that arrangement looked doubtful in the future unless he came up with a way to make some money.

The Somerville ruby might be exactly what he needed.

He didn't, however, trust the Comte du Marchand, which was why he was here, knocking on the kitchen door of the Hartley home.

A young maid, her hair trapped in a starched white cap and her round face watchful as she bobbed a

curtsy, opened the door to him.

He explained his errand, was directed to the housekeeper. Once he'd turned over the silverware and had his work approved as well as his bill, he returned to the kitchen and asked a question of the same young

maid.

"Is Miss du Marchand available?" he asked.

She frowned at him but answered nonetheless. "Oh, no, sir, she don't work here no more. She left."

He stared at her, uncomprehending. "What do you mean, she left?"

"She just walked out. No one knew until they went to her room. She wasn't there." She glanced behind her and then looked both ways as if afraid of being overheard. "I've never seen Mr. Hartley so angry," she whispered.

"Where did she go?"

She shrugged, and then shook her head. "No one knows. Not a letter, not a word."

Had the Comte du Marchand gotten to her first? He withdrew a coin from his pocket, one he could scarcely afford to part with, and smiled at the young maid. "Take this," he said, putting the coin in her hand. "If you hear anything, send word to me, and I'll match that coin with another."

She bobbed another curtsy, her eyes wide. "I will, sir," she said. "I promise."

He gave her his name and address, and left the house, annoyed and dispirited by the fruitlessness of today's errand. Not only was he desperate to locate the Somerville ruby, it now appeared that he also needed to find the Comte's daughter.

Chapter 17.

T he sky was deep blue and cloudless. The wind came out of the north, blowing him home to Gilmuir. Douglas stood at the bow of the ship and watched as they approached the fortress, recalling, as he always did, his first sight of the restored structure his brother Alisdair had brought back to life.

He'd been seventeen, recently recalled from France by his father. The elder MacRae had been annoyed at the length of his youngest son's stay in Paris and more than willing to take Douglas to Scotland. Ten years ago, aboard the ship with his mother and father, Douglas had looked up and seen, as he did now, the great golden rock topped with a magnificent edifice. Towers on all four corners marked the perimeter of the peninsula on which it stood. Closer to the loch was the priory, its arched windows gleaming with stained glass.

Six years ago, they had held the memorial for their parents in that place, and it had felt hallowed, almost as if he were standing in the shadow of God. All five MacRae brothers had been there, solemn and adult, yet all of them feeling bereft and abandoned.

The journey down the firth was a slow one. It took three days to reach Gilmuir by land from Edinburgh, and only a day by water. But he still had hours in which to view the sights before him, time enough to wonder at the fact that he'd escaped Edinburgh and was at Gilmuir a week early. He chose not to think of Jeanne. Instead, his memory conjured up his first visit here, when he'd been seventeen and miserable. He had known, then, that Jeanne was with child, but that was all the information he had. He had gone to see her one last time before he was due to meet his family. He'd wanted, fool that he was, for her to come with him. An elopement, if the Comte would have it no other way.

Instead of seeing Jeanne, however, he had only met Justine.

He'd finally divulged the story to his parents, and they, in turn, had sought fit to spread the entire tale to his brothers. The MacRae family had, as they always did, banded together. If hurt was imposed on one, it was felt by all. A few weeks later, he'd left Gilmuir with his brother Hamish and Hamish's wife, Mary, determined to return to France as soon as he could.

The ship, one of his own fleet, rode the currents of the firth with ease. Alisdair had designed the Edinburgh Lass; the MacRae shipyards had created it. Now he braced his legs apart, his hands behind his back, easily keeping his balance while his mind recalled his one and only visit to Vallans.

Seven months, four days, and three hours after he'd vowed to return to France, he'd reached the du Marchand chateau, only to discover that Jeanne was gone. He'd spent a week trying to find out what had happened to both Jeanne and his child. A young stableboy had finally succumbed to a large bribe, telling Douglas what he'd seen. Jeanne had left Vallans weeks ago for an unknown destination, but the child was located nearby.

The memory of finding his daughter would remain with him forever. The woodcutter's hut was located not far from Vallans, on the edge of the forest. The doorway into the cottage was so low that Douglas had to stoop in order to enter. After his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he realized that the space was even smaller than it had appeared from the outside. The bricks were loose in several places, allowing patches of light, the only illumination in the hovel. The furnishings were sparse, a rough-hewn wooden table, two chairs, and a sagging cot located behind a curtain.

"What do you want?" a quavering female voice had asked. She was pressed against the brick wall, gripping her apron with her fists, a look of fear on her face. Beside her stood a stoop-shouldered man clutching a pipe between both hands as if it were the greatest treasure of his life.

He'd not expected the inhabitants to be so old.

"You have a child here, the daughter of Jeanne du Marchand. Where is she?"

The couple glanced at each other, but neither moved to speak.

"Is your silence worth dying for?"

He heard Mary's surprised gasp, but didn't move to reassure her that he had no intention of killing the old woman and her husband. If they didn't produce his daughter he might kill them after all.

"We were given the child," the old woman said, sending him a quick, appraising glance.

"I'm taking her back."

"She's like our own daughter."

"She is my daughter."

The old man began to sidle away. A tiny mewling cry from the cot alerted him, and Douglas pushed back the curtain and stared down in revulsion at the sight that met his eyes.

He bent closer, a wave of nausea passing over him. He had not been around many infants in his life, but Douglas knew that what he was looking at was unnatural.

The infant was little more than a skeleton. The flies that buzzed around her face no doubt weighed more. Tufts of black hair covered her tiny head, and when she blinked up at him her MacRae blue eyes silenced any doubt he might have had about her parentage.

Mary came to his side and would have reached out and scooped up the child in her arms had he not

stopped her.

"No," he said, nearly incapable of speech. Emotions flooded through him-joy that his mission had succeeded, horror that his daughter looked as if she would not live the night. Above all, he was filled with rage for Jeanne du Marchand, who had left Vallans with no thought for her child.

"I'll carry her," he said and gently lifted the infant, ignoring everything but the look in her brilliant blue eyes. She fixed her gaze on him as if she knew he was saving her. Her head was too big for her body, and as he stared at her emaciated form in disbelief, one tiny hand reached out and almost touched him.

He cradled her in his arms, bent his head and kissed the tiny fist.

She couldn't be more than a month old or maybe two and lighter than a breath; such a small andweightless burden that when she closed her eyes he thought she'd died. His heart pounded in a rapid,panicked beat until she moved again. Only then did he lift his gaze to the old couple.

"Did you never feed her?" His voice sounded calm, almost rational, a remarkable feat considering that he

wanted to kill both of them."She's a picky eater, sir," the old woman said. She bent her knees in an awkward curtsy. "And themoney the woman gave us ran out. We couldn't hire a wet nurse."

Mary used her kerchief as a makeshift blanket, covering the baby in his arms."Can we save her?" he asked, glancing at her.His sister-in-law's look was too compassionate, her brown eyes revealing the truth.But then the baby blinked her eyes and looked up at him. There, in his daughter's face, he saw the shadow of his parents and his brothers. She was a MacRae and he prayed that she had the strong will of all MacRaes.

"Live," he whispered to her. "Please, live."

She was his child, but he had never expected to feel the overwhelming sense of protectiveness that he did at this moment. Nor had he thought to love her instantly and completely.

"We'll save her," Douglas said to his sister-in-law. "We will."

Instead of speaking, instead of giving him countless reasons why such a miracle would not happen, she only nodded, tears swimming in her eyes.

"What is her name?" he demanded of the couple.

The old man merely shook his head while his wife shrugged, the outline of her bony shoulders showing

beneath her shawl.

"We've never named her," she said. "But you can, if you wish, sir," she added, grinning at him, revealingthe brown stubs of her teeth.He shook his head in disgust. Settling the infant in his arms more firmly, Douglas headed for the door."You can't be taking her, sir," the old woman said, clearly alarmed. "What if someone finds out that she'

s gone?"

"I doubt anyone will come looking for her."

Anger for everything French nearly overpowered him. He hated the country, the people, even the language.Everything except for the child he cradled in his arms, so slight that she might have been a ghost of herself.

A moment later he emerged from the dark hovel to the sunlight, Mary following. The old woman followed them to where his brother Hamish stood beside their horses.

"Pay them," Douglas said and waited until Mary mounted before handing up his daughter.

Hamish withdrew a small leather bag from his waistcoat and tossed it to the woman. She opened it quickly and gasped at the amount of gold coins resting inside. There was enough money to keep her and her husband for the rest of their lives.

"You don't deserve it," Douglas said, glancing over his shoulder. "But this amount will buy your silence. Tell anyone, if they bother to ask, that she died. I doubt anyone will want proof."

The old woman nodded eagerly.

"Bless you, sir," the old man called from his position by the door.

Douglas didn't turn at his words. Instead, he mounted and then held out his arms. Mary reached over and gave him his daughter.

"It's a miracle she's alive," Mary said, one hand smoothing his coated arm, the other resting lightly on the kerchief covering his daughter.

Weeks had passed before they'd known if she would survive.

Douglas had never considered that he might hate as deeply as he loved. Not until the moment he'd taken his daughter into his arms and looked down at that tiny, wizened face. He'd known then that he would forever hate Jeanne du Marchand for what she'd done.

Where had that hatred gone?