Mia Marlowe (2 page)

“I, for one, consider the pink pantaloons a mercy.” Mary laced her fingers primly before her, fig-leaf fashion. “That kilt is far too short for modesty. Especially from this angle.”

“Weel, since the English are to be among us for so brief a time, the more we see of them the better,” Lucy quipped.

Aileen giggled, but Mary shot them both a withering glance that would have done credit to their decrepit great-aunt Hester, who
had
let the foul weather keep her safely indoors. The old biddy was fooling no one. The girls knew she wasn’t sweet enough to melt.

Lucy stood tiptoe to peer over the shoulder of the rotund matron in front of her. The MacOwen family wasn’t sufficiently important to rate a place directly before the cordoned-off disembarkation space.

“Which one do you suppose is
him?
” Lucinda didn’t need to explain who she meant by
him.
Her intended was foremost in all their minds since her pending marriage affected the entire family.

“’Tis no’ likely he’s a handsome braw lad, worse luck for ye, Lu. The best ye may hope is that he’s still got his hair.” Aileen crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “And maybe his teeth.”

“I dinna think that matters.” Though Mary was the youngest MacOwen sister, she was also the most frightfully practical. “Even if he has a hump like Old Man MacClintock, Lucy will still have to marry him.”

Lucinda’s spine stiffened. “It was to be Maggie, remember, not me. Have a care with your ill wishes, sisters dear, lest I leave my bridegroom to one of ye.”

Mary gave an unladylike snort. “Maybe Margaret saw a miniature of Lord Bonniebroch and that’s what sent her haring off.”

They hadn’t heard from their oldest sister, Margaret, since she took flight with the man-of-all-work from a neighboring estate.

“I doubt it, but ’tis fair awkward for me, and that’s God’s truth,” Lucinda said. “I’ll no’ say I blame her though. Maggie loves Duncan Fraser and there’s no help for it.”

“And there’s no help for the fact that one of us has to wed this Lord Bonniebroch, either,” Aileen said. “Even if his kilt hides a forked tail!”

Intermediaries had negotiated the marriage agreement in secret, combing through the particulars about grazing rights and stud fees for the two families’ combined herds, about Erskine MacOwen’s patents for improvements to the weaving loom, along with Lord Bonniebroch’s financial support of the invention. Then their father and the laird had finally signed the contract and that was that.

Fortunately, Erskine MacOwen hadn’t stipulated
which
“daughter of the house” would be offered up on the matrimonial altar to seal the deal.

“I’m glad ’tis ye and not me being trotted out to honor Father’s word,” Aileen said to Lucinda. “But honestly, he might have spared his daughters a passing thought before he made this bargain.”

“’Tis no’ Father’s fault, really,” Mary said, loyal as a basset.

“Whose fault it is that he canna manage his own affairs?” Aileen gave a little sniff of disapproval.

“’Tis a small matter now. The deal is done,” Lucinda said, lifting her chin. She wouldn’t let her sisters see how she chafed at being an unspecified commodity in the transaction, of less import than the prize-winning Blackface ram Lord Bonniebroch also demanded. The sheep, at least, had its long pedigreed name specified in the documents.

But if the family was on firm financial footing and she bore a “Lady” before her name, then the chances of Aileen and Mary making happy matches shot up like a flock of pheasants rousted by a hound.

“Weel, it isna as if ye had a beau, Lu,” Aileen said. “There’s a mercy.”

Lucinda flinched as though her sister had slapped her, but Aileen was right. She’d never had a beau. Brodie MacIver ran off every lad who tried.

This “made marriage” was the best she could hope for and she knew it. And since the contract was binding, Brodie couldn’t do a thing about it.

Which probably accounted for the ghost’s general surliness of late.

She was all he had.

“Just because I havena got a beau doesna mean I won’t hand Lord Bonniebroch to ye if he turns out to be the hairless, toothless wretch ye’ve wished on me,” Lucinda said with a sidelong glance at Aileen.

“Ye’ll not be leaving Lord Bonniebroch to one of us, and ye know it. ’Tis not your way. Even before she met Duncan Fraser, Maggie was always the flighty one. But ye’ve grit enough for ten sons, Lu. Father always says so.” Aileen pointed toward one of the Englishmen leaning on the ship’s gunwale. “But I’ll take your Lord Bonniebroch if he favors that fine fair-haired laddie there. Are there any pictures provided in that
Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide to Eligible Gentlemen,
Lu?”

Before her engagement to Lord Bonniebroch was finalized, Lucinda had pored over the leather-bound listing of bachelors and wondered at the sometimes outlandish advice the book’s author recommended for capturing one of them. Now she supposed she’d have to hand the book over to her sisters.

“Dinna point, Aileen,” Mary said, batting at her sister’s upraised arm. “’Tis impolite.”

Lucy followed the invisible line from the tip of her sister’s finger. When she spotted the young man Aileen pointed to, her jaw went slack.

She’d never seen such a dazzlingly handsome man. Or one who could set her heart a-clicking from such a distance.

His skin was fair after the manner of wellborn Englishmen, his sandy hair a bit on the longish side, which made it more striking. The severity of having it slicked back by the wind accentuated his bone-deep good looks. A plaid sash in blue and red, proclaiming a clan affiliation, was draped over his broad shoulders so he must have some Scottish blood as well. If someone had asked Lucinda to conjure up a prince for the Folk of the Hollow Hills, he’d look exactly like that stern, forbidding, utterly beautiful man.

Her belly fizzed as if she’d downed a frothy syllabub in one gulp.

The man stood a few inches taller than the dark-haired fellow at his side, but they both carried themselves with the dangerous grace of fighting men. The brunet said something and the handsome man laughed, a smile bursting over his features like sunrise on a cloudless morn.

Something threatened to burst inside Lucinda as well. She was suddenly hot and achy beneath the bones of her stays. She usually didn’t give a man’s appearance much thought, but now that she faced the prospect of crawling into bed with one, the subject had pushed itself to the forefront of her mind.

Would it hurt anyone in the grand scheme of things if Lord Bonniebroch turned out to be a man who made her pantalets bunch like this one did?

Aileen turned her sly gaze on Lucinda. “Well? Isn’t he fine?”

Lucy released a pent-up breath. “He sets me belly a-jitter, for certain sure.”

“Och! That’s indigestion, most like,” Mary said. “Ye’ve been off your feed for days. More parritch tomorrow, I’m thinking. That’ll set ye to rights.”

The stout man in the red kilt turned away from the gathered crowd, and waddled toward the gangplank. It was probably disrespectful to imagine the king’s envoy waddling, but Lucy thought he resembled nothing so much as a fattened gander as he strutted along. Her gaze didn’t linger on him though. Instead, Lucinda tracked the handsome Englishman’s progress along the ship’s rail as he followed in the kilted fellow’s wake.

“Weel, when you do meet Lord Bonniebroch,” Aileen said, “just be sure you dinna mention Dougal till after the knot is tied good and tight.”

Lucinda’s lips drew together in a tight line. “I thank ye kindly for your advice, Mistress Readily Apparent.”

It was clear during the nuptial negotiations that Lord Bonniebroch had no idea Dougal MacOwen was mixed up with the Radicals’ cause. The less said about their felon of a brother and his troubles the better.

Once Lucinda was safely married, she’d expect her powerful new husband to help his brother-in-law avoid the noose. Since the laird of Bonniebroch was traveling home from London on the same vessel as the king’s advance party, it stood to reason he’d acquired some valuable connections during his recent trip to the English court.

“There’s the boggle I’ve been waitin’ for,” Brodie MacIver’s voice rumbled in her ear again.
“He’s the spit of Cormag
MacGregor,
the thrice-cursed offspring of a diseased swine.”

“Who?” Lucinda whispered. It made her seem a trifle daft when she answered Brodie while others were present, but sometimes the ghost was hard to ignore.

“Only the man who damned me to this half-life of misery,”
Brodie went on.
“This must be one of his spawn or else Cormag made a deal with the devil to live on in this world forever unchanging. Wouldn’t put it past him, stinkin’ offal of a mangy dog that he is.”

“Who?” she said a little louder this time.

Attaching specific tartans to specific clans was one of Sir Walter Scott’s brainbrats. Lucinda loved the blue and green Black Watch plaid that marked the MacOwen family as part of the Campbell clan, but she hadn’t had leisure to commit all the other distinctive weaves to memory yet. Brodie, for whom time was no object, obviously had.

“Who?” she hissed again.

“Who, who, who? Fancy yourself a wee owlet, do ye?” Aileen said. “Patience, sister. I’m sure Lord Bonniebroch will make himself known to ye.”

The man in the red kilt paraded by and the crowd surged forward to get a closer look. Kilts had been outlawed since 1746, so this one excited much notice. Lucinda only wished a finer figure of a man was wearing it.

Brodie’s grip tightened on her shoulder. Then before Lucinda could stop him, he propelled her forward, shoving her between Lady Beaton and Lady Dalrymple. Aileen’s shawl slipped from her shoulders. The thick velvet cording that nominally held back the crowd didn’t impede her momentum one tiddly bit. She stumbled forward onto the scarlet carpet, a blur of blue and red tartan and a pair of shiny black boots filling her vision.

Then at the last moment before she would have landed with a splat on the wet wool, a pair of strong arms snatched her up. She was yanked back upright and clasped to a chest so muscular she could feel the hardness and strength of it even through the layers of clothing separating them.

“Alexander, my lad. Found a lass already, I see,” the dark-haired gentleman chided. “Why am I not surprised? Women in London throw themselves at you with regularity. This Scottish miss undershot the mark a bit, but you seem to have the matter well in hand.”

Lucinda’s cheeks burned with embarrassment as the gentleman erupted with laughter. She looked up into the face of her rescuer. It was that impossibly handsome Englishman.

If only she could melt away into one of the standing puddles, she’d never ask for another thing in all her life.

“My friend Clarindon exaggerates. You’re the first woman to
literally
throw herself at me.” The man’s chest rumbled with a deep baritone as he looked down at her with amusement. “Is it a Scottish custom or is this charming welcome particular to you?”

“Neither,” Lucinda managed to squeak.

Brodie latched onto her hem and it billowed along with him in the stiff breeze. She swatted at her skirts, trying to tamp them down.

She’d have been better off if the fine man had let her land face first on the soggy ceremonial runner. At least then she wouldn’t be all atingle at the way her breasts were pressed against the hard planes of his chest. In fact, all of her was flush against his body, with the tips of her toes barely brushing the ground.

“You’re trembling,” the Englishman said, the teasing light leaving his eyes. They were the gunmetal gray of the North Sea before a storm. “Are you quite well?”

He lowered her to stand on her own two feet but kept hold of her. A tingle raced about her ribs like a caged squirrel.

She ought to pull away. She ought to deliver a stinging cut direct. The man was
English,
for pity’s sake.

She could only stand there and look up at him, trying not to let her mouth gape like a codfish.

“She’ll no’ be needin’ assistance from the likes o’ ye, MacGregor,”
Brodie growled.

The man gave no sign of having heard Brodie. He covered one of Lucinda’s hands, which was resting on his chest, with his. Warmth flooded her entire body, clear to the soles of her feet.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” His eyes darkened with concern.

“I’ve suffered no hurt but to me pride.” Lucinda managed to slip out of his embrace and tried to collect herself. It was difficult when he didn’t release her hand. His grip was firm and comforting and a wicked part of her didn’t particularly want him to let go. “I was jostled by the crowd, milord. If I startled ye, ye have my deepest apologies. Someone pushed me, I fear.”

She shot a poisonous glare over her shoulder at Brodie. The ghost released her hem, letting her gown settle to earth, and clapped a spectral hand on her elbow instead. Lucinda’s glare melted into panic as, through Brodie’s hazy form, she saw the man in the red kilt turn and stride back toward them.

“What is the meaning of this?” the kilted man said, giving Lucinda a slow perusal.

She was wearing her best gown save for the one she planned to don for her wedding. She’d thought the pale blue muslin especially fine and well-suited to her coloring, but the man’s curled lip made her feel a hopeless rustic. Then he flicked his gaze to the handsome fellow.

“Lord. Alexander. Mallory.” He spit out each word as if it were an unwanted seed stuck between his teeth. “Trust you to disturb our progression.”

“The rest of the world continues unimpeded, Rankin,” Lord Alexander said. “It appears I’ve only disturbed you.”

Alexander
Mallory.
Is there a lovelier name in all God’s creation?

Rankin cast a dark frown at her hand in Lord Alexander’s, startling Lucinda out of her bumfuzzled musings. Her cheeks flared with heat again. She pulled her hand free and crossed her arms over her chest in indignation.

“A gentleman’s timely reflexes can hardly be named a disturbance, milord,” she said, a little vinegar slipping into her tone. “Lord Alexander merely saved me from a quick tumble.”

“Have a care then, Mistress,” said Rankin with a leer. “For a
quick tumble
is one of the things Mallory excels in, I’m told.”

The crowd around them sniggered.

Lucinda rarely disliked anyone at first sight, but she decided she’d make an exception for Lord Rankin.

A light mist began to fall again and she shivered. Lord Alexander must have noticed, for he removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The wool carried some of his warmth with it.

“I’d introduce you to Lord Rankin, miss,” he said. “But unfortunately, though I managed to catch you, I failed to catch your name.”

“It’s Lucinda.” She dipped in a small curtsey. “Lucinda MacOwen.”

“Not just Lucinda MacOwen an’ it please ye,” Aileen interrupted, dragging Mary behind her as she pushed into the circle of onlookers that tightened around Lucinda and the two English lords. “My elder sister will be Lady Bonniebroch within a week, so she will.”

Lord Rankin arched a wiry brow at Alexander Mallory. “Indeed? This must be a record, even for you. Not five minutes in Scotland and already you’ve acquired a fiancée. Surely a coterie of mistresses cannot be far behind.”

I must be hearing things.
Lucinda edged away from Lord Alexander. Being near him made her a bit light-headed. Nearly falling at his feet was bad enough. A swoon would mark her as hopeless.

“I fear there’s been a misunderstanding, Lord Rankin. My intended isn’t Lord Alexander.”
More’s the pity.
“My betrothed is Lord Bonniebroch.”

The crowd of Englishmen around her laughed again, but Alexander Mallory paled visibly.

“We’ll leave you to sort out this
misunderstanding,
then,” Rankin said to Mallory. He cast a calculating gaze over Lucinda and both her sisters. “But our quarters at Dalkeith could no doubt benefit from additional local ornamentation. Mistress MacOwen, you and your charming sisters will join us at the palace as guests for the duration of our stay.”

Lucinda and her sisters dipped in low curtseys, murmuring their awed thanks. Perhaps she’d been hasty in her estimation of Lord Rankin. Never in all her livin’ life, did Lucy MacOwen dream of the honor of sleeping beneath the same roof that would house a king come next summer.

Even if it was an English king.

“If I’d thought it would get me an invitation to Dalkeith, I’d have launched myself at the man too,” Lady Beaton whispered to Lady Dalrymple.

“Our guests will no doubt require transportation,” Lord Rankin said, snapping his fingers at Alexander Mallory and baring his teeth in an expression no one would mistake for a smile. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Mallory. I’ve been remiss in not calling you by your new Scottish title. See to the ladies’ comfort, if you please, my Lord
Bonniebroch.
”

 

 

“But ye’re
English.
” Lucinda MacOwen managed to make being English sound worse than if he carried the plague.

“Guilty as charged,” Alexander said. He narrowly resisted the urge to swear at Rankin’s retreating back. How was he to ferret out Radicals if he was saddled with this addlepated chit and her sisters?

Undoubtedly, that was Rankin’s aim. He routinely cut out anyone who managed to insinuate themselves into Lord Liverpool’s inner circle like a sheepdog culling the herd. If Alex failed here in Scotland, he might never be called upon to serve the prime minister again.

As a second son, he wasn’t encouraged to make much of himself. His father’s estate was flush enough to support a dozen dilettante dependents. A military career would have been appropriate, but Alexander’s distinguished service in the military was what brought him to the prime minister’s attention in the first place. Alex had earned a reputation for getting things done, devil take the hindermost. Lord Liverpool needed men like him.

If Alex didn’t have this clandestine work, he’d be stuck in London dancing attendance on the latest crop of debutantes or wasting his allowance in gaming hells.

Without purpose, he’d go mad. Something rather frowned upon in his family.

It was deucedly inconsiderate of the previous Lord Bonniebroch to fail to mention that he was engaged to marry a woman he’d obviously never even met. He glanced around hoping to see MacMartin on the dock, but the fellow had made himself scarce.

Lucinda MacOwen was a tempting armful, but from the way she gawked up at him openmouthed, it was obvious she was a bit balmy as well. Alexander made it a point of honor to avoid women who were a peck short of a bushel.

“I dinna understand. You’re English . . . and yet you’re Lord Bonniebroch,” she sputtered. The rest of the crowd flowed around them in Lord Rankin’s wake as if they were a pair of stones in a stream.

“So it would appear,” he said, cupping her elbow to guide her through the throng. Her sisters trotted behind them, cheerful as spaniels.

“Remember what I said, Lucinda,” one of her sisters sang out. “I’ll no’ have ye sacrificin’ yourself on my account. I stand ready to honor the word of Erskine MacOwen and—”

“Hush, Aileen,” Miss MacOwen snapped, and then she turned back to Alexander, a tremulous smile tugging at her peachy lips. “’Tis honored I am to meet ye in truth now, my lord, though the manner of it was less than dignified.”

“The story of how you two met will make an amusing tale for your grandchildren one day, I shouldn’t wonder,” Clarindon said at Alexander’s other elbow. “Come, your lordship, allow me to introduce myself to your betrothed.”

Alexander shot him a glare that ought to have reduced him to a bubbling puddle of suet. The girl was bad enough without Clarindon encouraging her in this fantasy of an engagement.

“Sir Bertram Clarindon, at your service.” Clarindon made an obeisance over her proffered fingertips and pronounced himself “charmed.”

“These are my sisters, Misses Aileen and Mary MacOwen, sir.” Lucinda’s voice was pleasingly low and musical, but Alexander steeled himself against the growing attraction he felt for her.

He didn’t have time for this sort of complication.

“Well, ladies, I’m sure you must have simply boatloads of trunks and portmanteaus that will need to be transported to Dalkeith Palace,” Clarindon said. “Shall we hail a cab and see about collecting your effects?”

“Leith isna London, Sir Bertram. We can walk to our great-aunt’s home from here quite handily. ’Tis on the next street but one,” Miss MacOwen said, nodding in the direction they should proceed. Then she slanted a gaze at Alexander. Her green eyes were quite lovely and her nose had an appealing upward tilt. “I hope Aunt Hester will give ye a fair welcome, my lord.”

“My lord? Why stand on such ceremony, Miss MacOwen?” Clarindon grinned hugely as he offered his arms to both the younger MacOwen sisters. “As his betrothed, you ought to call him Alexander, I should think. At least until you find a suitable sobriquet for him. I understand Lady Wattleston refers to her husband as ‘His Muchness’ and he calls her his ‘soft little rabbit.’ Isn’t that too precious for words?”

“A few come to mind,” Alexander said darkly.
But none that bear repeating in feminine company.

He narrowed his eyes at his friend and Clarindon wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valor. As they walked on, Bertram confined himself to observations on the weather and the coming Christmastide festivities.

Her slender hand resting lightly on his forearm, Lucinda MacOwen was still blushing to the roots of her red hair. Alexander wondered if it was “His Muchness” or “soft little rabbit” that brought out the flaming color. In any case, she didn’t say another thing until they reached a venerable gray stone house that listed only slightly toward its easterly neighbor.

“This is the home of my great-aunt, Hester MacGibbon.” Miss MacOwen’s mouth tightened in a half-apologetic grimace. “She’ll no’ be expecting to learn ye’re English.”

She made
English
sound as if it were the culmination of the Seven Deadlies.

“Or that ye’re a MacGregor, come to that.” She looked askance at his plaid.

MacGregor
fared only slightly better than
English
as she spat the word out.

“This?” He ran a hand over the plaid draped on his shoulder. “My mother’s maiden name was MacGregor. That’s all.”

Most of the men at court had scrambled to fetch up some sort of Scottish connection so they could indulge in King George’s kilted pageantry. Alexander would have been happy to loan them his. And the connection that came with it.

“It seems I’m both English and Scottish,” he said. “If either of those attributes are an impediment to our betrothal, we can—”

“No, no.” Her eyes flared in alarm. “I’m sure Aunt Hester will come round.” She ushered him through the faded green door. “Eventually.”

As the party crowded into the MacGibbon home’s small vestibule, Alexander noticed no servant appeared to welcome them, or even to inquire after their business. If they’d been a gang of ruffians bursting into the house with mayhem on their minds, there was no one to say them nay.

“Weel, did ye see the English envoys?” A voice like the scrape of a fingernail on slate called from an adjacent parlor. “Their leader is a fat, wee toad of a man, is he no’? Told ye, I did. Got it from Lady Kilgore who met Lord Rankin herself once in Londontown when she was a slip of a girl and he a spotty-faced boy from Eton. People dinna change that much o’er the years. Might’ve saved yerselves a drenching, but ye wouldna listen.”

Miss MacOwen cast Alexander a self-deprecating grimace and turned to her sisters. “Hie yourselves upstairs to pack. I’ll introduce Lord Bonniebroch and Sir Bertram to Aunt Hester and be with ye directly.”

Aileen and Mary disappeared up the stairs with a rustle of petticoats and flurry of skirts.

“Dinna stand there dripping on the threshold, ye wee ninnies,” the scraping voice came again, more strident this time. “Catch yer death, ye will and ye’ll no’ see me shed a tear. Nary a one, because I told ye so and ye wouldna heed me. Now, trundle yerselves in here.”