Mia Marlowe (6 page)

“Very well,” Alexander said. “Since you’ve nothing else, I’ll take him.”

“Good,” Mr. Gow said. “’Tis either him or shank’s mare for ye, laddie. But dinna ye want to see can ye ride him or no’ first?”

“Dinna—I mean, don’t worry about that,” Alex said. “I can ride him.”

“I think ye ought to heed Mr. Gow and give the horse a try,” Lucinda said.

“Aye, lad. Listen to the lady. The last man I sold Badgemagus to brought him back after a day. O’ course I took him off his hands, kindhearted fellow that I am.”

Alex snorted. “For less than the man paid for the beast, I’m sure.”

Mr. Gow spread his hands before him. “To be honest, I’ve sold and bought Badgemagus back three times. And at a profit each time, to be sure.” The hostler cackled at his own wit, but at least he was forthright about his method of making money.

Since both Lucinda and Mr. Gow seemed set on seeing him ride the beast, Alex gave in. “Saddle him up.”

Mr. Gow fitted the horse with its tack and led it outside the stable to the cobbled street. Alex checked the girth and inspected the placement of the bit.

“Remember what I said about his mouth,” Mr. Gow said. “Fair ruined, it is.”

“We’ll see.” Alex mounted up and settled his heels low in the stirrups. Then he squeezed the horse with his thighs. “Walk on.”

The horse plodded down the narrow street, his great head nodding in rhythm with the steady clop of his hooves. Alex chirruped and he broke into a brisk trot. Badgemagus did indeed have a sweet gait. Horse and rider fell into an easy rhythm with each other.

“Gow is telling tales on you, my friend,” Alex crooned to the gelding. “You’re biddable as a lamb.”

Then he tried to turn the horse down a lane that forked off to the right.

Badgemagus let Alex swing his nose in that direction, but kept trotting straight ahead.

Alex hauled back on the reins, but the horse only gave his bridle a shake and picked up his pace. At the next side street, Alexander tried to turn Badgemagus to the left. The horse ignored the man on his back as if he were of no more import than a tick in his shaggy coat.

By the time they reached High Street, Badgemagus had stretched out into a full rolling canter.

 

 

“Oh, no,” Lucinda said. “What are we to do?”

“Why we nip up to the roof so as to get a better view of the show, o’ course,” Mr. Gow said.

“But—” Since the hostler had already disappeared back into the tack shop abutting the stable, Lucinda had no choice but to follow.

“Dinna fret, lassie,” Gow said. “Yer young man’ll take no hurt . . . provided he knows how to fall. Come with me now and step lively.”

Mr. Gow no doubt meant his words to be a comfort but Lucinda took none from them. She followed him to the rear of his shop, up three rickety flights and into the cobweb-festooned attic. Then they climbed a ladder to a narrow parapet perched along the spine of the steeply sloping roof.

“Och, there they are, lassie.” Mr. Gow pointed into the distance.

Lucinda squinted in that direction. The streets of Edinburgh were laid out below her in a bird’s-eye view. Alex and the gelding barreled down the main street, swerving wildly from side to side. Foot traffic and mounted travelers alike skittered out of their path.

“Watch now. Old Badgemagus will try to peel him off.”

The horse hugged the left side of the street in order to bash Alex into the low-hanging signs that graced the shops’ entrances. Alex leaned on one stirrup and flattened himself onto the plunging animal’s side.

If he fell now, Alexander might roll beneath those huge hooves. Lucinda pressed a hand against her chest. Her heart threatened to pound right out of it.

“Are ye afeared yon laddie will kill himself afore he makes ye his Lady Bonniebroch?” Mr. Gow asked.

She hadn’t been until that moment. Wounded pride or a sore head was as far as she’d allowed herself to imagine. Now she visualized the worst. Not only would Alexander Mallory’s untimely demise ruin what her family hoped for in the match, she couldn’t bear the thought of his fine strong body being trampled to a bloody pulp.

A sob escaped her lips.

“Och, I’ll warrant he’ll be all right yet. A lad as stubborn as your Lord Bonniebroch would take a heap o’ killin’.”

Then the horse streaked beneath the last of the overhead obstacles. Once they were past, Alexander righted himself and swung back up into the saddle.

“He’s a bonny rider, Englishman or no’. I’ll give him that,” Mr. Gow said. “Your young man has kept his seat longer than any of the others. Most of ’em panic as soon as they realize they canna turn him. If not, that trick with the signs usually works.”

“If you knew what the horse would do, why didna ye warn him?”

Mr. Gow bared his yellowed teeth in a frightful grin. “Where’s the sport in that? But dinna fret. Yon laddie has an excellent seat on a horse.”

“The excellent seat of his trousers is not to be lightly dismissed either,”
she quoted the
Ladies’ Guide
to herself as she leaned on the wrought-iron rail that framed the parapet. When Alex and the horse flew over an apple cart and landed on the other side without breaking stride, a thrill coursed through her. “The man’s a veritable centaur.”

“We’ll see,” Mr. Gow said. “Badgemagus has more one trick up his—och! Here ’tis and there he goes.”

The horse bolted up to the edge of a hedged garden, then stopped dead at the last possible moment. Alex had evidently been gathering himself for a leap over the hedgerow, as he’d done when they jumped the apple cart, but this time, he made the leap alone. Momentum threw him over the horse’s head and tail-over-teakettle into the garden.

The horse’s whickering laugh floated all the way up to Lucinda on her perch above the tack shop. Fortunately, Alex’s head popped back up from behind the hedge almost immediately. Thank heaven, he didn’t seem much damaged. He only looked a bit ridiculous with several sprigs of juniper sticking from behind one ear.

But Lucinda had never seen such a look of fury on a man’s face. Her betrothed was a storm about to break. She almost pitied Badgemagus.

“Weel, that’s that,” Mr. Gow said mournfully. “The horse’ll run back to his stall now and I’ve lost the chance to sell him and buy him back by dealing too honest.”

Lucinda cast him a tight-lipped grimace. “You failed to tell Lord Alexander of the horse’s true faults. How is that honest?”

“I insisted the lad try to ride him, did I no’?” Mr. Gow headed for the ladder. “Handsomer than that, ye couldna wish.”

Lucinda snorted. Then she looked back at Alex. The horse didn’t seem to be running away. It stood by the hedge, ears pricked forward as Alex pushed through a gap in the greenery. He spoke to the gelding.

Instantly, the horse hung his head with every appearance of contrition. But to Lucinda’s great relief, Alexander didn’t try to mount the beast again. Instead, he collected the slack reins and began leading Badgemagus back to the stable at a determined pace, stopping from time to time to berate the horse with another verbal blistering.

Lucinda marked the fact that her betrothed had a black temper. Granted, the beast had warranted it, but she wondered what it would take for her to see that English storm headed her way.

She decided she didn’t want to find out.

 

 

“I’ll take him,” Alex said once he and Badgemagus finished their uphill trudge to the stable.

Mr. Gow eyed him with suspicion. “Did ye suffer a clout to the head in yer fall?”

“No. I’m perfectly sensible.”

The way Lucinda rolled her eyes, it was obvious she agreed with Mr. Gow.

“But the horse is no good to ye,” she insisted. “Ye canna ride him.”

“Not yet,” Alex said. “But I will. What will you take for him?”

He haggled with Mr. Gow over the price long enough not to be thought a total dupe and bought the tack along with the gelding. Badgemagus might be no prize, but his saddle was crafted of fine-grained Spanish leather and the halter and bridle was its perfect match.

It didn’t matter if Badgemagus was the worst example of a horse in equine history. It didn’t matter if the sky opened in a downpour when they traveled to Dalkeith on the morrow. Alex was determined not to be trapped in an enclosed coach where he’d be outnumbered by the MacOwen females all the way to the Christmastide house party.

It was bad enough that his future was being outnumbered by them.

“Ye do seem to have a way with horses, even if he did unseat ye in the end,” Lucinda said as they walked back to her great-aunt’s house with Badgemagus trudging head down behind them on a tether. “What did ye say to calm him so after ye . . . well, there toward the end of your . . . ride?”

“I instructed him a bit about his namesake,” Alex said. “The first King Badgemagus was attached to King Arthur’s court, you see. He dearly desired to become a knight of the Round Table, but never quite cut the mustard. After many sorry misadventures, he was accidentally killed.”

“And that story settled the beast down?”

“No. He settled when I promised if he didn’t shape up,
his
demise would be no accident.”

“I’ll no’ be havin’ me great-nieces spirited off in the company of an English heathen with no one to tend to the proprieties o’ things,” Hester exclaimed on the rare bright December day when all the MacOwen girls were finally bundled into the waiting coach that would take them to Dalkeith.

“Now just a moment,” Alex said, taking a stand between her and the loaded coach. “I may be an indifferent churchgoer, but I’m no heathen.”

Hester gave him her best impression of a gargoyle, but he wouldn’t budge. “Cromwell banned Christmas ye know for bein’ a pagan festival. Ye English have started up celebratin’ it again with all manner of foolishness, but I dinna want me nieces tainted by yer foreign ways.”

“I hardly think they’ll be corrupted by a little wassail and mistletoe,” Alex said.

“Still, they’ll need a chaperone as they’re motherless lambs, the poor dears, so it’s me bounden duty to serve as such,” she argued. “Lucinda, get ye out of that conveyance now and help me set the house to rights afore I close it up. The rest of ye may go on yer way. Only mind ye be at yer best comportment till I get there, Aileen MacOwen—aye, I’m lookin’ at ye, girl—or I’ll know the reason why. Mary, ye’re the only one with a lick o’ sense in the lot, so mind that yer sister doesna disgrace us with a lack of manners.”

Lucinda had always prided herself on having a good deal of sense.
So much for “poor dears,”
she thought, bristling a bit. The MacOwen girls had degenerated from motherless lambs to ninnies who didn’t know how to hold a spoon properly in one swift tongue-lashing.

As if Aunt Hester could hear her rebellious thoughts, the old woman cast a gimlet eye at her. “I used to think ye the most likely of the bunch till ye went and got yerself betrothed to an Englishman and a
MacGregor
to boot.” Hester turned back to Mary. “Tend yer flibbety-gibbet sister for me ’til I get there.”

Lips drawn in a tight line, Alex opened the coach door. Lucinda tamped down her irritation and supposed he was right to let Aunt Hester have her way in this. It was less trouble than trying to thwart the old biddy.

She slipped her hand into Alexander’s as he handed her down from the carriage. Ordinarily, she’d have enjoyed his warm grip, but she sensed his frustration in that brief touch. He was as anxious as she to be gone from Hester MacGibbon’s dictatorial presence.

They weren’t the only ones.

“I thought we were rid of that auld harridan,”
Brodie MacIver grumbled in her ear as he held tight to her shoulder.

While Lucinda’s ghost was charmed with the sound of his own voice often enough, he was less forgiving when others bumped their gums constantly. Or, as in Hester’s case, so authoritatively.

Brodie had been upset at being left behind while Lucinda went with Alexander to buy his horse yesterday, so he wasn’t about to be separated from her now. Brodie clamped a firm hold on Lucinda’s shoulder with both hands as she waited for Aileen to hand her hatbox down.

It was deemed too frail to ride in the baggage cart. Lucinda couldn’t chance anything happening to the delicate box or its precious contents before her wedding day.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” Alex quoted under his breath as he took the hatbox from her.

She shot a glance at Alexander from under her lashes. His face was a bland mask. She could well believe he was a masterful card player as he ordered the driver to take Aileen and Mary to Dalkeith Palace and then return to collect the rest of the party.

Badgemagus trotted behind the carriage, rolling his eyes and shying to one side when he passed Lucinda and Brodie. The hitched team hadn’t responded to the ghost’s presence at all, but the blinders with which they were fitted might have had a hand in that.

No worries about that blue eye at all,
Lucinda thought. Badgemagus seemed to see Brodie just fine.

“Worthless beast,” Alexander muttered.

He might have been of a different opinion if he’d been aware there was a ghost hovering nearby, but Lucinda wasn’t about to tell him about Brodie. Certainly not before the knot was tied good and tight.

“Be sure to leave the gelding at Dalkeith,” he called to the driver. Alex kicked at a stone in the road. “It’ll make a good rest for him on the way to the glue factory.”

“Ye dinna mean that,” Lucinda said as she followed Aunt Hester’s ponderous trudge back into the house.

“I almost do.” Alexander fell into step beside her. “I tried several times yesterday evening to make that horse respond to the bit, but each time I wound up in a breakneck race that ended in an abrupt stop.”

“Mr. Gow will buy him back from ye.”

“I wouldn’t give that old charlatan the satisfaction,” Alex said, shoving his hands deep into his trouser pockets. “No, I mean to ride that horse if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Let us hope it doesna come to that.”

“Lord Bonniebroch!” Aunt Hester called back to him. “I’m feeling meself a bit wobbly. Your arm, if you please.”

“She seems disposed to forget I’m English and a
MacGregor
for the moment. I’d best take advantage of it,” Alex said softly before he excused himself and trotted ahead to offer a steadying arm to the old woman.

Lucinda smiled, admiring the fine lines of the man as he walked ahead of her.

Excellent seat of his trousers, indeed.
She made a mental note to consult
The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide to Eligible Gentlemen
again to see if Lord Alexander was mentioned in any other entry besides the alphabetical listing.

“Ye see what he’s about, dinna ye?”
Brodie whispered in her ear.
“Dancing attendance on yer auntie like that. He’s milkin’ the cow to get at the calf.”

“Nonsense,” she whispered since Hester had engaged Alexander in a loud tirade about the English and their overbearing ways. “He’s only being a gentleman, something with which ye’ve little enough experience. Besides, the betrothal is settled. Lord Alexander already has the calf . . . I mean, he has me.”

“He’d better no’ have ye,”
Brodie said darkly.

“Let me be worryin’ about that. Remember what I said. Ye’re to leave Lord Alexander alone. No appearing in his chamber once we get to Dalkeith. No boiling slugs in his bathwater. No ordering spiders to converge in his boots. In other words, none of your usual tricks.”

Her threat to never speak to Brodie again simmered in the air around them as they entered beneath the low lintel of her great-aunt’s house. Hester’s cantankerous complaints rattled through the residence as Alex settled her in the parlor, so Lucinda felt free to continue her conversation with the ghost for a moment longer.

“Och, as ye will then. I’ll leave his precious lairdship alone,”
Brodie promised.

“And whilst we’re on the subject, I want to thank ye for the restraint ye’ve shown in leavin’ me alone over the years when I’ve had the need for privacy, when I dress and bathe and such like.”

“Weel, o’ course.”
If he’d been able to, Brodie would have blushed.
“To me, ye’re still the little girl I met in the cellar. And I’m like the uncle ye never had.”

“You’re like the uncle no one’s ever had. But back to the subject at hand. A girl with her betrothed needs privacy too. I want ye to leave Lord Alexander and me alone should we ever chance to find ourselves, well . . . alone.”

“And I never will if ye dinna—”

“Who are you talking to?” Alexander stood framed in the parlor doorway, looking at her with a puzzled expression.

She gave what she hoped was a convincing little chuckle. “Myself. I do that from time to time when I’ve a good deal to do. Helps me organize me thoughts.”

“Well, perhaps you can organize me too. Your aunt wants a tot of rum and I’m not sure where . . .”

“Ah! That’ll be in the cold larder, back of the kitchen. Follow me.” Lucinda glanced behind her to see that Brodie had heeded her wishes and wasn’t tailing them.

Instead the ghost circled the iron candelabra in the vestibule so quickly, the fixture glowed as if every wick was lit.

“I must say, ye’re taking Aunt Hester’s change of plans with exceeding good grace,” Lucinda said as she stretched and stood tiptoe trying to reach the bottle of rum on the top shelf. Alexander stepped close, pinning her between his body and the shelves, and retrieved it for her.

“Here you are.”

He handed her the bottle but didn’t move away. Their bodies weren’t touching, but Lucinda fancied she could feel the heat of him in any case.

“You’re patient with your aunt too,” he said, still not moving to allow more space between them.

“Weel, o’ course, I am. She’s family,” Lucinda said.

“What difference does that make?”

She turned and stared up at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. “Dinna ye ken that our family teaches us about the world and our place in it? Whatever we may know about the important things in life, we learn at our parents’ knees. ’Tis said one may choose their friends, but God chooses a family for us.”

Alex snorted. “The Lord must have a sense of humor to send you scurrying about trying to please someone who can’t be pleased.”

She smiled at that. “I’m sure we all give Him reason to chuckle from time to time. Oh, I know Aunt Hester may seem like an old bother, but how d’ye know she wasn’t put into my life to teach me the patience ye see in me?”

“So you’re saying we deserve the family we’ve been given?” He leaned a hand on the cupboard behind her. “If I’d known that, I’d have repented in sackcloth and ashes long ago.”

“Is your family so terrible, then?”

“More like nonexistent.”

Lucinda knew that wasn’t true. According to
The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide to Eligible Gentlemen,
Alexander’s father and brother were very much alive. Of course, there was also that cryptic entry about madness in connection with his mother. Perhaps it was time to change the subject.

“Weel, I’ll have Aunt Hester all packed up and ready to go by the time the coach returns for us.”

“Speaking of packing, what’s in that hatbox you’ve been so precious about?” he asked.

“Just a little something for me wedding,” she said. The veil that her mother had worn for
her
wedding was tucked in the padded compartment. It was a delicious confection of lace that had been handed down through several generations of MacOwen women. Lucinda had never dreamed she’d actually ever wear it and wed such a handsome fellow in the bargain. She was still tempted to pinch herself each time she looked at Alexander Mallory. “I want ye to be surprised.”

“No worries there. I’ve been surprised nearly every moment of the day since I arrived in Scotland. Even the word ‘wedding’ gives me a bit of a jolt.”

She pressed down her disappointment. He was no closer to being a willing bridegroom than he was when he stepped off the
Agatha May.

“Lucinda!” Great-Aunt Hester bellowed.

“A moment, aunt,” she called back. Alex still didn’t move away, so she tipped her chin up to meet his gaze.

“You’ve been patient about other things besides your aunt. Like finding those other three men to kiss. There’s been no chance for you to even meet any since we’ve been delayed in moving to Dalkeith,” he said. “Unless of course you kissed Mr. Gow while I was otherwise occupied.”

That made her chuckle. “He’s no’ exactly the sort of man who makes girls’ pantalets twist, is he?”

“I suppose not.”

He leaned toward her, a hand on the shelf at her shoulder. There was no need to imagine she could feel his warmth now. Their bodies were touching and it was as if a low fire had been kindled in her belly.

“What sort of man might affect a lady’s pantalets like that?” he asked.

“As if ye didna know, Your Much of a Muchness.” She couldn’t resist naming him thus when the hard length of him was pressed up against her.

“I thought you wouldn’t call me that till you knew if I deserved it.”

“I’m making . . . an educated guess.”

“If I’m the first man to ever kiss you, I don’t think you may consider yourself educated in such matters. Not even enough for a guess.”

“Then why dinna ye educate me?”

His expression grew as strained as if he were wrestling Aileen’s big trunk down the staircase again. “You’ve no idea what you’re asking.”

He stepped back a pace and Lucinda’s belly curdled in disappointment.