Fascination -and- Charmed (69 page)

“I do believe the silly chit has some notion that a man may somehow produce offspring entirely without the assistance of a female.”

Calum looked at his feet and willed himself not to explode. “You may be correct. On the other hand, I think it far more likely that Pippa knows more than you think. She may even see a certain humor in this.” In fact, he was almost certain he’d seen a sparkle of enjoyment in her eyes after Struan’s horrified reaction to her suggestion.

“
I
do not see any humor,” Struan said truculently.

“Nonetheless, we are going to do as she has suggested.” Calum offered Struan a hand and, when he reluctantly took it, hauled his friend to stand beside him. “You have no better plan.”

“I will not do it.”

“We might, of course, try suggesting you were secretly married and now are left a widower with two children.”

Struan stared at Calum for a long time before saying, “You would do well not to push me further in this.”

“Quite so,” Calum said. “That would be going too far, since most people know your history. So Pippa’s story must stand as it is.”

“I will not do it,” Struan declared again.

“You most certainly will.”

“Absolutely not.” Struan’s firm mouth turned sharply downward at the corners. “How could you expect me to be believed if I told such an astonishing story?”

“You are not the only man who has two bastards to his credit,” Calum replied, evil glee in his heart and an angelic expression on his face.

Struan turned on him. “You…I do
not
have two bastards to my name.”

“No,” Calum agreed, puckering his brow. “No. Not that I am aware of.”

“You try my patience, Calum.”

“Not too difficult a task to accomplish,” Calum responded with absolute sincerity. “At least not on this day. Come, we will go on to the castle.”

Struan hung back. “We must think of another plan.”

“There is no time.”

“Then we should go back to the nearest village and find lodgings. I need more time. Perhaps we could cast about more carefully for an appropriate solution.”

“Too late,” Calum said.

“We are early yet for our invitation to Franchot Castle.” Calum took a deep breath. “You forget that we are already committed to this course.”

“How so?”

Calum shook his head. “You are not thinking well, my friend. The
addlepated
female we recently encountered will not simply forget that she saw us. She will return to the castle and if we have not arrived, she may announce that she has seen us on the road with your two illegitimate children.”

“Do
not
say that again,” Struan fumed. “We can stop her. She also has a secret—”

“Pippa will
not
be used to further our ends,” Calum said shortly, and felt the twisting of unwanted premonition within him. Since their last meeting in London, the conviction had grown in him that he might eventually cause Pippa, at the very least, deep humiliation. He glanced at Struan and said, “What she has proposed makes absolute sense.”

“That I have two illegitimate children? One of them
fifteen?
”

“You were perfectly capable of fathering a child at eighteen. And Pippa is correct, y’know. This
is
the only answer.”

Struan paced back and forth. “How shall I explain it all?”

“Leave it to me.”

“Good God, no!”

Calum’s patience grew thinner. “We are going on to the castle. At the very least, I am going on to the castle. You have two charges now and I do not think you will easily relinquish them. I know you, Struan. You will not be lured away from this path you have chosen. And the
only
solution rests with a complete
lie.
Come, let us return to the carriage.”

“I will not allow you to tell my
lies
for me,” Struan said, matching Calum’s stride toward the bend that would put them in sight of the carriage.

“You will get no argument from me,” Calum said, deliberately training his eyes ahead. “When we gain the castle, you may go in ahead of me. Ask for Lady Justine and throw yourself upon her mercy.”

“Throw myself…” Struan’s voice trailed off.

Calum schooled himself not to look at his friend. “Precisely. Appeal to her finer feelings. I assure you that Lady Justine has very fine feelings.”

“How do you know?” Struan’s feet beat hard on the road now.

“I know,” Calum said, mildly enough. “My sister is a truly gentle woman. She is also exceedingly intelligent.”

“What has intelligence to do with—”

“If I am not mistaken, Lady Justine may grasp that your story does not have a totally true ring, yet she will—since I also know she is a good judge of character—she will decide to champion you and your children.”

“They are
not
my children,” Struan said through his teeth.

“Oh, but I rather think they are. You have made them so.”

“I am appalled at the prospect of telling such an outright lie to this woman who has every right to expect my good faith.”

“At the moment, you have a more pressing dilemma at which to be appalled.” Calum stopped and indicated the road ahead. “Here comes one of your inconvenient offspring.”

Before Struan could react, Max—with the coachman hot on his heels—shot around the bend toward them. Seeing Calum and Struan, the boy threw wide his arms and flailed like a mad windmill. “Save me!” he yelled. “ ’E wants t’kill me! ’E wants t’kill a poor, abandoned boy. ’E says ’e’s going to cut off me fingers and toes and string ’em on a braid made of me ’air. ’E’s a monster, that’s what ’e is!”

Max, his red hair glowing, flew into Struan’s arms.

“Working at unhitching the carriage, ’e was, your lordship,” said William, the Stonehaven’s London coachman. “Caught ’im at it. If the ’orses ’adn’t agitated, gawd knows what would ’ave ’appened.”

“I do believe this is where we must begin what we intend to continue,” Calum said, clasping his hands behind his back and rocking onto his toes. “William, there is something you need to be made aware of.”

“Oh, my God!” Struan, with Max still attached to his body like a morning-glory vine to a stalwart tree, shook his head adamantly. “Do not do this, Calum.”

“William,” Calum said, not to be dissuaded, “how long have you been with the family now?”

“Seven years,” William said promptly and with evident satisfaction. “Seven good years, and the marquess ’as made it clear ’e considers me a man worth trusting.”

“And so do we, William, so do we,” Calum said, beginning to enjoy himself far more than he knew he ought to. “We trust you so much that we are going to take you into our confidence in a most delicate matter.”

“Calum,
please.
”

“William is most trustworthy, Struan. You know that as well as I do. These children—Ella and Max—they have suffered greatly, William. They have been abandoned to the whims of evil men.”

“You don’t say.” William sounded bored.

“Yes,” Calum said. “But that has all changed. Now that Viscount Hunsingore has decided to assume responsibility for their fate, their futures will be forever changed, and for the better. He could not have guessed how desperate their need for him to come forward and face this obligation had become.”

William, short, muscular and ruddy, met Calum’s eyes squarely. Calum saw the other man slowly form conclusions about what he’d just been told before muttering, “You
don’t
say,” in a voice heavy with understanding. “Well, now, in that case, I can only congratulate you on your devotion to duty, my lord. And if I can assist in any way, you have only to say the word.”

Trying to pry Max loose, Struan groaned.

“Well,” Calum said, “there is something you can do, William.”

“Only ask, Mr. Innes.”

“Very simply, we would appreciate your learning to refer to Miss Ella and Master Max as his lordship’s children. Do you think you could do that?”

A grin slowly split William’s round face. He swept off his hat and pushed sandy hair out of his eyes. “Consider it done,” he said.

“What are you grinning at?” Struan asked suddenly, loudly.

William was instantly sober. “Me, my lord? Grinning? Never. I expect I was just thinking about ’ow ’appy the marquess was when ’e found out you lied—I mean, pretended about being a priest. I reckon as ’ow ’e and ’er ladyship will be beside ’emselves with joy when they meets their new nephew and niece for the first time.”

The woman who confronted Struan made him entirely forget his reason for being in a marvelous Gothic drawing room at Franchot Castle.

“Lord Hunsingore?” she said, her voice the kind that broke a little, as if with secret laughter. “I understand you and Mr. Innes are to be our guests here.”

Struan stared at her.

“We had not expected you so soon. In fact, had we waited to leave London until the appointed day, you would have arrived here before any of us.”

“We would?”

“Oh, yes,” she said seriously, averting her eyes each time she met his, as if she were afraid direct contact might wound her. “As it is, my brother and the rest of his party will not arrive for several days.”

“I see.” He saw a tall, slender, straight-backed woman with thick dark hair shot through with red lights. She was no longer a girl, but she was lovely in a refined manner, with dark eyes, arched brows, a straight nose and a mouth that was beautifully cut—a mouth cut, in fact, like a more restrained version of the one belonging to Struan’s very best friend.

Good God, Calum could very well be right. He could be related to this woman.

“Where is Mr. Innes?”

Where he had no right to be, meddling wretch that he was.
“The long journey made him restless.” The villain had ducked out in Struan’s hour of most desperate need. “Mr. Innes is a man who delights in a great deal of exercise. He is walking about. Admiring this marvelous castle, no doubt. But I’m certain he will join us soon.” Without uttering a word, Calum had left the coach at the top of the final rise to Franchot Castle and had disappeared into a nearby thicket. At this moment, William was in charge of the surprise Struan had no choice but to visit upon Lady Justine.

“The dowager duchess will not be able to greet you, I fear,” Lady Justine said, coloring slightly. “She, er, feels somewhat indisposed and may decide not to leave her rooms for some time.”

“Yes,” Struan said, intending to convey understanding but fearing Lady Justine would hear what he truly thought, which was that the Dowager Duchess of Franchot had little interest in minor nobles and their untitled friends. “Even less in inconvenient offspring,” he muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

Struan blinked and centered his gaze on Lady Justine’s striking face. “Less inconvenience,” he said, casting about for either help or an escape. “Less inconvenience might offer the lady some…
spring…
to her being, that is.”

“Inconvenience?”

“We…that is to say, I fear I may present you with a dilemma for which you cannot possibly be prepared.”

“How could you, my lord?”

As if to answer her question, the door was opened by a footman, accompanied by Ella and Max.

“These two young people said they wished to be with Viscount Hunsingore,” the footman announced, clearly disapproving. “They were most insistent that he would want them with him because of their previous experiences while residing with a Mrs.—”

“
Thank
you,” Struan interrupted quickly. “Thank you very much. Come in, you two.” He tried, probably without success, to sound and appear jovial and delighted at the sight of the pair. Whatever happened, he must make some sort of excuse—other than the unthinkable one Lady Philipa had proposed—find a distant place in this castle in which to hide his two charges and place them elsewhere as quickly, and quietly, as possible.

Ella, her exotically angular face set in as demure a mold as such a face could accomplish, approached Struan across the expanse of silken green carpet. A girlish, pale pink pelisse over a muslin gown of a like shade did not at all suit her, Struan decided, but it was a definite improvement over the transparent red creation in which he’d first seen her.

When she stood before him, her head tilted, he saw anxiety in her great dark eyes. She looked over her shoulder and beckoned for Max to join her. He came, head hanging in a manner so uncharacteristic that Struan was filled with alarm.

“Mr. Innes told us to come in ’ere,” Ella said in her clear voice. “ ’E said you’d want us to meet a lady.”

Lady Justine had not moved since the children had entered the room. Now she came toward Struan and he vaguely noted that she limped quite markedly.

“Lady Justine, er—” Struan looked into the woman’s warm brown eyes.

“Girvin,” she said, giving what must be her family name. He would have Calum’s interfering hide for this. “These young people are—”

“There you are!” Calum’s voice, booming through the room, emptied Struan’s brain of any coherent thought. “Meant to come in with these two rascals. Had the good fortune to run into Lady Philipa.”

Struan scowled.

Calum smiled and walked over to ruffle Max’s hair. Amazingly, the boy grinned with pleasure.

“Have you explained our small
contretemps
to Lady Justine?” Calum asked.

“Well, I—”

“I thought not,” Calum said with a resigned expression. “Never mind. Struan is a shy fellow, Lady Justine. The children and I will deal with the matter at hand, won’t we, children?”

“Oh, yes,” Ella said and smiled sweetly from Struan to Lady Justine and back again. “Mr. Innes is right. I can feel it. The lady won’t think nothing of finding a place for two children what ’ave learned to manage with very little. Am I right, lady?”

“
My
lady,” Struan murmured with quiet desperation.

“
My
lady,” Ella said obligingly.

“But of course,” Lady Justine said, smiling for all the world as if there were nothing she relished more than the intrusion of two uncultured, unexpected guests.

“There,” Ella said triumphantly, and threaded an arm through one of Struan’s. She gazed up at him adoringly. “I told you everythin’ would be perfect soon as we got ’ere, Papa.”