Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (4 page)

“To be seen talking to you for over a half-hour now? Oh, aye, undoubtedly. My friends will think I have lost my good sense, as well as the better part of my good humor, if they see me talking to a politician, even a ‘New Tory’—which is a ridiculous thing for your set to call yourselves, because you’re all as stodgy as any old Tory, if you ask me, which you do not. But what my friends will think when they see us together talking after dancing in so slim a period as a half an hour, is that you
like
me. Or worse, that I like
you
.” She shuddered with mock horror, as if such a thing were akin to contracting the influenza.

“You used to like me.” Five years ago, she had been the invisible audience at the passion play of his wooing Lady Linnea. It had been a game, guessing which chair or curtain she would be hidden behind, stifling her giggles.

Funny how it had seemed just yesterday.
 

Lady Quince was not a party to his reminisces—she was all of the here and now. “Aye, I suppose I did like you once.” She heaved another theatrical sigh at him. “But I can see you’ve grown scruples to spare now that you’re Cairn. How tedious.”

“Have I?” He frowned, even as he felt himself smile. “I’d like to think I had my scruples all along. Maybe you just couldn’t recognize them yourself—as you seem not to have many a’tall.”

It was very nearly an insult, though he didn’t really mean it as such—he meant to be teasing.

But she was herself, and though her smile momentarily slid off to one corner of her mouth as if considering its options, she didn’t take offense. She laughed. “Quite right. I sold every last one of my scruples for a lively profit some years ago, since I wasn’t using them.” But then she poked him hard in the chest. “You used to be fun.”

“Ah, well.” What could he say? Time marched on. “That was a long time ago, lass, when I was younger, and untested in the ways of the world. And when I became a man, I put away childish things—”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, don’t quote the Bible at
me
. That’s
my
gambit,” she muttered. “Talk about fallow fields.”
 

“Aye.” He could feel his face stretch into a grin. “I can see you’re unrepentant. But I do thank you for that assessment of my former character.” He leaned back against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You saw and heard an awful lot from behind those chairs of yours.”

“I saw enough.” She peeked up at him from the corner of her eyes. “I saw Linnea throw you over.”

Alasdair felt his jaw go tight. It was galling to find that anyone had witnessed even a part of his come down—it was not a moment he liked to remember. But it was also a moment that he could not allow himself to forget—that moment, and the nascent scandal that had given rise to Linnea’s rejection, had shaped the man he was today.

“Poor staid Strathcairn.” Lady Quince repeated her opinion of the man he was today rather emphatically. “Perhaps Linnea sensed that you were destined to become a grumbly auld grumphus.”

Did wee Quince not remember the reason behind her sister’s terse dismissal? Perhaps she had been too young to understand the fullness of the brewing scandal. But she was not so young now. “You are too old to be trying to provoke me in this childish manner.” So was he, but he could not seem to stop himself from crossing verbal swords with her.
 

“Never,” she contradicted. “And I am only trying to provoke you into having some
fun
. Larkiness is good for the soul, and you, Strathcairn, could use a great whopping dose of larkiness.”

“I should think you’ve enough for all of us.”

“I have. And I take it as my solemn duty to spread all available larkiness around.”

“Rather like manure on a garden?”

She roared laughing again. “Quite right, Strathcairn. Rather exactly like manure. Manure for the soul!”

“Quince, my dear?” Lady Winthrop stood no more than three feet away—close enough to have heard their conversation.
 

But how much? He had been too absorbed with his wee nemesis to notice.
 

“My Lord Cairn.” Her ladyship dropped a graceful, if economical, curtsey to him, before her eyes shifted toward her youngest daughter. “What can the two of you have been having such a heated
tête à tête
about?”

“Parliament, Mama.” Wee Quince surprised him with the speed and ease of her lie. “Strathcairn reveals himself to be a strict, dedicated politician.”

He had quite purposefully made his career the entirety of his existence. So why did wee Quince Winthrop’s opinion of him sting so much, like a tiny, but biting nettle, working its way under his skin?
 

“How interesting, my lord.” Lady Winthrop’s voice held the quiet yet commanding tone of a lady who knows very well when people are saying one thing, and meaning another. “I did not know you had been introduced to my youngest daughter.”

That daughter again answered before he could speak. “His lordship trespassed upon the old acquaintance.” Her mischievous little smile dared him to contradict her. “Though I almost did not recognize him, it has been so many long years since he courted Linnea. And she such an old married matron, now.”

“Quince.” With a single word and a singular look, Lady Winthrop stopped her daughter from saying anything more provoking. “I daresay his lordship has grown tired of your taunting style of conversation. And your Aunt Celeste bids you attend to her.”

To his surprise, the lass did not argue, or protest, or offer her mother the slightest cheek. She did as she was bid, but not before she shot him a warning look—all leveled brow and direct stare—that told him he was not to reveal the true nature of their conversation—all that
flirtation
—and silently excused herself.

He watched her go with a strange and entirely unexpected pang of relief and loss, as if he had forgotten to breathe, and was just now catching his breath.

“Well, my Lord Cairn.” Lady Winthrop’s pleasant social smile did not falter in the least, but her gaze was as direct and forthright as her daughter’s. “Might I inquire as to what sort of
manure
you’ve been spreading around?”

Oh ruddy, bloody hell. Clearly, Lady Winthrop remembered the old scandal full well.

Alasdair had to call upon all his politician’s tact. “Just a metaphor for my rather execrable attempt at matching young Lady Quince’s wit.”

Lady Winthrop’s look—all high brows and inquiring eyes—showed her astonishment. “You were attempting to match wits with Quince? And how, pray tell, did you get on? Though you don’t look like you’re bleeding about the face and ears like the rest of them. Dare I hope you held your own?”

Alasdair was so astonished, he gave her the truth. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Yes, her style of conversation, to use a polite phrase, is rather a bit too…acrobatic. But you don’t look the worse for wear.” Lady Winthrop gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Well done, you.”

“I don’t know how well done it was, but I can tell you that lass of yours is wasted in Edinburgh. She’d take Parliament by storm if she unleashed that acrobatic, agile mind of hers in serious debate.”

“Would she?” Her ladyship’s brows rose, though her gracious smile never faltered. “Pray don’t tell her that, or you’ll have a petition for ladies’ suffrage on your hands. But what an
interesting
assessment of my daughter’s character, my lord.”

Oh, devil take him. Now she thought he was, as Quince had said,
serious
.

“I’m sure she’s a lovely enough lass.” Alasdair was anxious to change the topic, and save himself from any further scrutiny. “And how is Lady Linnea these days, ma’am?”

“Ah.” Lady Winthrop was kind enough to turn the conversation his way. “Well, I thank you. She is Lady Powersby, now, and the mother of two rambunctious children. Their Aunt Quince is therefore a favorite of theirs.”

Of course she was. Like attracted like.
 

Alasdair forbade himself from smiling. “Lady Powersby is to be congratulated.”

The lady’s mother nodded in acknowledgment. “I will give her your greeting, my lord.”

“Thank you, Lady Winthrop. Please do.”

The lady again nodded cordially, but there was still something of her youngest daughter’s straightforwardness to her gaze. “Your attentions to my youngest daughter have been noted, my lord. I do not say so entirely to censure—as I have heard nothing but good of you these past years—but to warn. Quince likes to…” She searched again for an appropriate word for her blithe youngest daughter. “…stir the pot. And I should think you would prefer not to have your particular pot stirred.”

“Indeed, ma’am.” He had been duly warned off—for his own good, as well as her daughter’s. “Just as you say, my lady.”

“Thank you, my lord.” She inclined her head cordially. “I bid you good evening.”

“Good evening, ma’am.” Alasdair bowed deeply, and as soon as Lady Winthrop had disappeared into the crush, he made for the card room where he knew a good drink—meaning a decent, large glass of brandy—could be had.

 
But there in the doorway to the card room, absentmindedly patting down his coat pockets, was the Honorable Fergus McElmore.

“What ho, Fergus my lad,” Alasdair greeted his acquaintance. “Misplaced something, have you?”

“Hello, auld mon.” Fergus McElmore returned the greeting. “I say, Alasdair, have ye seen my auld snuffbox? That one of my father’s? Damned if I
haven’t
misplaced it somewhere again
.
”

Perhaps wee Quince Winthrop had the right of it. Perhaps the thefts he had pledged himself to end were nothing but the product of whisky and forgetfulness. “Do that often, do you, Fergus?”

Fergus reddened enough for his cheeks to match his nose. “More than I ought.”

“Well, lad, you’re in luck this evening, because as a matter of rare fact, I have seen your snuffbox. Right this way.” Alasdair led Fergus toward the spot where he had begun his wordplay with the intriguing and infuriating Lady Quince Winthrop. “Saw it just here,” he indicated the small table with the vase of heather spilling over the edge.

“Here?” Fergus peered around the base of the vase. “Don’t see it.”

“Nay. Just at the side there. I’m sure of it.” Alasdair picked up the vase, so there would be no mistake, no missing the wee silver box.
 

But there was no mistaking that the table was now empty. The snuffbox was gone.

It
had
been right here—he had seen it himself. It had to still be right there. Unless… “Did you pick it up from here, and then misplace it perhaps somewhere else?”
 

“I don’t think so,” Fergus answered Alasdair’s first question. “But I say, auld mon, ye seem to have lost something as well. The buttons on the back of your coat. They’re gone.”

“The hell you say.” Alasdair whirled around, grabbing up his coattails to have a look. And there, where only an hour ago the shining silver buttons had winked at him in the mirror, there was only plain, unadorned, blood red velvet.

Well, damn him for a fool.

Chapter Three

The Honorable Fergus McElmore’s snuffbox was all but burning a hole in her pocket, but it was really her conscience that was on fire.
 

She ought not have taken it. She really, really ought not. But the box had just been sitting there. Calling out to her. Reminding her that one tiny silver and enamel box could feed many, many little mouths.

But the very bad fact of the matter was that she could resist neither the temptation, nor the slippery jangle of anticipatory excitement that had set her pulse to beating from the moment she’d decided she would take the glittering little prize. Nor the illicit thrill buzzing through her veins now that she had the tiny container safely stowed away. The thrill that was as addictive as any opiate. And addicted she was—she would always be tempted.

Yet, even such clear-sighted self-awareness did little to curb her magpie habit.

Quince escaped the ballroom by slipping into the withdrawing room, where she might splash some cool water on her cheeks, and calm her hectic pulse. As nervy as she felt, it would quite likely show. Someone—meaning her nearly omniscient mama—would think she
had
been doing more than sparring with Strathcairn if she looked all flushed and giddy.