Amanda Scott (51 page)

“She’s just as much Lady Agnes as she is the dowager countess, anyway,” Pinkie pointed out. “And she’s been Lady Agnes since she was born, after all, not just since she married, because her papa was an earl just like Himself’s papa was. I had to learn all about that sort of thing, you know,” she added. “It wouldn’t do for me to make mistakes in company, after all. Things like that are important for ladies to know, Mary says, although she don’t seem to care much about them herself.”

Instead of making the light response she expected, Chuff remained silent for so long that she looked up at him to see why. He was frowning again, but he was not gazing at the smoke this time. He was just staring into space.

“What’s wrong, Chuff?”

A muscle jumped in his lower cheek, and for a moment she thought he would refuse to tell her. Then he looked at her and seemed to make up his mind. He stopped walking and turned to face her directly, taking both of her hands in his and holding them tightly.

Pinkie felt a little shiver race up her spine. Whatever he was going to tell her would not be pleasant. “What is it, Chuff? Why do you look so fierce?”

“Have they spoken to you about London, lass?”

Surprised, she said, “Of course they have. Lady Agnes talks only of gowns and fashions, of course, but Himself and Mary have talked of practically nothing but London and Oxford for weeks. You know that.”

His expression did not change. “I know we’ve talked about how it will take weeks to get there from the Highlands, and how we will travel, and where we will stay along the road and when we arrive. We’ve talked about fabrics, tailors, and dressmakers. We’ve talked about coaches, wagons, inns, baggage, servants, whom and what we’ll take with us, how many horses, dogs, and so forth. What we have not talked about, Pinkie lass, is the reception we are likely to receive there.”

“Goodness, Chuff, you sound like you do not expect to enjoy it at all. I thought you had decided it would do you good to go.”

“It will do me good,” he said, his tone still grim. “Whatever I said before, I do know that I will benefit from a broader education. I’m not the one I am concerned about.”

“You’re worried about me?”

“I am. Clearly, no one has spoken to you about one very important matter. He only just warned me, or I’d have told you myself earlier. We did not attend many parties together last spring when you visited me in Edinburgh.”

Bewildered by the apparent non sequitur, she said, “You were still in school. When you could spend time with us, we did other things, things that were fun. I found that I did not much care for parties, anyway.”

“Aye, I remember. I remember that when I asked you why you didn’t like them, you told me you thought them tedious.”

There was an accusatory note in his voice this time, and she found herself answering defensively, “But that’s perfectly true. They
were
tedious. I suppose if I had been one of the more popular girls, I might have liked them better, but I wasn’t, Chuff. I’m still shy with most people, you know. I always have been shy. And, in Edinburgh, shy girls don’t seem to attract many handsome young men who want to dance with them.”

She saw hesitation in his expression, but then he straightened, squaring his shoulders in the same way she had seen him square them after he had misbehaved, and knew that he faced a scolding or punishment. “I believed that then,” he said gently, “just as you still believe it, lass. But Duncan told me it was more than that.”

Chuff never called Himself Duncan when it was just the two of them. Between themselves they still referred to him the same way they had when Black Duncan Campbell first came into their lives. He had seemed utterly godlike to the two children then, and they had mistaken him for lord of all he surveyed. They had soon learned that he was as human as anyone else, and they had come to love him like a father, but that had not diminished their awe of him. That Chuff called him Duncan now reminded Pinkie that they were both nearly adults, although she was still eighteen and Chuff would not legally come of age until June.

“What more could there be?” she asked.

“Did they say nothing to you about what to expect in London?”

She thought for a moment. “He told me he would give me a dress allowance so that I can order dresses made in the latest fashions, and he said that I should not be dismayed if some of the English nobility hold their noses in the air when they meet members of the Scottish nobility. He said our connections to the Duke of Argyll and the Earl of Rothwell will prevent anyone’s being truly rude to us.”

“Is that all he said?”

“Aye. All that I can remember, at all events. Mary schooled me more on the sort of manners that will obtain in London society, for she has learned all about them from her cousin Maggie Rothwell. And Mary said we had best not mention her gift of second sight, because the English take a dim view of such things and tend to believe that the Sight does not exist.” She felt a sudden bubble of laughter and squelched it, saying in a carefully even tone, “Are you afraid that I might mention my ghost, Chuff? Indeed, I can easily promise you that I will not.”

Instead of laughing, as she expected, he just shook his head. His demeanor remained solemn. “Pinkie, if they haven’t said anything, doubtless they will say that I ought not to speak of it either, but I cannot believe silence in such matters is wise. The problem does not affect me as much as it will you, because whatever their English scruples may be, I am still
Lord
MacCrichton. Furthermore, I am wealthy, a plain fact that will outweigh any number of sins, I’m afraid.”

“What sins, Chuff? I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of, I promise you.”

“I know you haven’t, lass, but the people who ignored you in Edinburgh did not do so because you are shy. You’ve got over much of that, anyway, so long as you are with people who are kind to you. But it will be worse in England if they find out, and I cannot believe it is right not to warn you to take care.”

“If they find out what?”

“About our parents, Pinkie.”

“What about them? Our father was the younger son of the seventh Lord MacCrichton. Do you mean because he died serving Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

“I imagine that will count against us with some English folks, but that’s not the worst of it,” Chuff said. “Don’t you remember what they called him, lass?”

Pinkie shook her head. “No one talks much to me about him,” she said.

Chuff sighed. “That’s because they are afraid of Black Duncan,” he said. “No one hereabouts dared taunt us about either of our parents, but don’t forget that folks have long memories, lassie. If it should become known in London that you are the daughter of Daft Geordie MacCrichton and his woman, Red Mag—”

“They called him
Daft
Geordie? How unkind, and how absurd to fret about it now, since it was due to his being our father that you inherited Shian Towers and the MacCrichton title and fortune. Moreover, they were married, Chuff. We’ve got a copy of their marriage lines in the muniments room at Balcardane.”

“Aye, we do that,” he agreed.

When he said nothing more, she thought about what he had said already. “I mustn’t tell people about all that. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“That’s part of it,” he agreed. “But that’s not all, lass. If people should find out, they won’t like it that your father was called daft, and more than that, they won’t like it that your mother was a dreadfully common woman.”

“They’re your parents, too,” she muttered.

“Aye, and I never said it was fair,” he said. “I might find a lass whose family would turn me down flat out of fear that our children might be a bit off, like our father; however, it’s much more likely that my fortune will more than make up for any other deficiency. It’s my own line that’s tainted, after all. No one would blame my wife or her ancestors for any backward offspring.”

“What a horrid thing to say!”

“I’m not saying it. It’s what others will be thinking, though.”

“Is that what they’ll think about me, that I’m tainted? Just because I don’t have money?”

Evenly, Chuff said, “Between us, Duncan and I will see to it that your dowry is a lucrative one, lassie, but there are many who will think no amount can make up for the possibility of your introducing lunacy to a proud, untainted noble line.”

“Then I won’t marry a nobleman,” Pinkie said. “In fact, I don’t think I want to marry at all. I have never met anyone who was half the man that you are, or Himself, or half the man my ghost is, for that matter.”

Chuff smiled and shook his head, giving her hands a light squeeze before he released one and drew the other through the crook of his arm. “You’ll marry, Pinkie lass. You’re far too bonnie to remain single. I just didn’t want you going to London unarmed, so to speak. The last thing you want is to fall in love with someone who will cast you off because he suddenly learns the truth and thinks your parents make you unsuitable to marry him.”

“I’d never fall in love with such an arrogant man,” she said stoutly.

“I don’t think love is so predictable,” he told her.

“Piffle, I know exactly what sort of man I could love, and that sort isn’t it, definitely.”

“You don’t even know any eligible men,” Chuff said with a chuckle. “The only male I’ve heard you talk about besides Duncan or myself and a few kinsmen is that ghost of yours, and you don’t have any way of knowing what sort of man he was, or even if he ever existed outside your imagination.”

“I do, too, know,” she said fiercely. “I know exactly what he’s like. He has all the virtues I admire and none of the faults I detest.”

“And he rides a white horse, too, I’ll wager, and rescues fair maidens from fire-breathing dragons! Well, it doesn’t matter if he does do all that. You can’t fall in love with a ghost, Pinkie, and no mere man could ever be that perfect.”

“Don’t be absurd, Chuff. I haven’t fallen in love with a ghost, and he doesn’t ride a white horse. Come to think of it, though, he does own a magnificent deerhound that walks like a shadow at his side.”

He looked at her in surprise. “A deerhound?”

“Aye, and so my ghost, dear brother, is a Highlander, and at least an earl or the chief of his clan, because no one of lesser rank is allowed to own deerhounds.”

Chuff’s eyes were twinkling again. “Just so you’re truly not in love with this paragon, lass.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said firmly, “and I know that men are not perfect, sir. When I said he had all of the virtues I seek and none of the faults I detest, I meant only that and no more. I shall be able to overlook what faults he has if I love him. Just as I overlook yours,” she added sweetly.

He chuckled. “We’d best be getting back now, lass. Himself and the men have reached the Dunraven dock, so he will be looking for me soon, and I see Mary and the bairns on the hillside, waving.” Chuff waved back.

Pinkie waved, too. Her lovely holiday was over, but she enjoyed the children and looked forward to hearing about their day. They would be going to London, too, which was why Roddy stood there on the hillside, waving, with his mother and younger sisters, instead of being away at school.

His father had said he was old enough, at ten, to go to Edinburgh, but Mary had said he would learn more by traveling to London than by pining away at school, wishing he were with them. Himself had not approved, but although no one else could change his mind once he’d made it up, Mary could, and so Roddy was going, and his father would hire a tutor when they got there. Pinkie thought Roddy was more excited about going than anyone else was. As for herself, she resolved to savor each day she had left in the Highlands, because if Chuff was right to worry, then London might prove to be even worse than she expected.

Mingary Castle

The West Highland Coast

A Fortnight Later

“E
VEN WORSE THAN I
thought,” the Earl of Kintyre muttered to himself as he stared glumly at the last page of the accounts his steward had set before him earlier that chilly spring afternoon.

At the sound of his voice, the large dark gray dog that lay curled near the tall, paneled doors separating the bookroom from the great hall opened its liquid, dark brown eyes and lifted its furry head. Its warm, steady gaze looked sympathetic enough to draw a smile from its master.

“Staring at these numbers doesn’t make them look any better, Cailean,” the earl said. “I had hoped we might buy sheep, even though introducing collies to your domain might strain your family’s dignity a wee bit. Unfortunately, I’d have to cut down the forests to accommodate the sheep’s grazing needs, and that would play right into Campbell’s hands. I cannot bring myself to do it. Not yet, at all events.”

With a sigh, he picked up a letter near his hand on the desk. He had already read the thing twice since the runner had brought it. A third reading was not likely to alter the words or the arrogant scrawl in which they were written. Reading it was like probing a sore tooth. It hurt, but one kept doing it anyway.

The moment he moved, the dog’s tail began thumping against the wood floor, and the earl allowed himself a moment to gaze in simple pleasure at the elegant creature. Then the tail fell silent, and Cailean’s ears lifted.

Small for the dog’s great size, they sat high on its broad, flat, tapering skull. In repose, they folded back like a greyhound’s, but now they cocked forward alertly, their drooping tips silvery where light from a nearby window touched them. The main part of each ear was glossy black, darker than the rest of the dog—except for the tip of its nose—and felt as soft as a mouse’s coat when stroked.

The earl thought at first that Cailean was responding to his movements and voice, but then the dog turned its head toward the door, and he heard what it had heard much sooner, a rapid clicking of heels on the stone floor of the great hall. A moment later, the door swung back on its hinges, and his sister entered the room.

Even to her brother’s critical eye, Lady Bridget Mingary, at sixteen, was beautiful. Her long black curls, unconfined by any cap, looked as soft and as shiny as the large blue satin bow into which she had confined a bunch of them at the back of her head.