Once Upon a Tartan (41 page)

The paying guests were a source of much-needed coin, but the summers were too short, and the expenses of running Balfour too great for paying guests alone to reverse the MacGregor family fortunes. The benefit of this situation was that no coin was on hand to dower Mary Fran, should some fool—brother, guest, or distant relation—take a notion she was again in want of a husband.

“Mary Fran, for God’s sake slow down.” She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized her brother Ian had approached her from the top of the stairs. “Where are you churning off to in such high dudgeon? Con and Gil sent me to fetch you to the family parlor for a wee dram.”

Ian’s gaze was weary and concerned, the same as Con or Gil’s would have been, though Ian, as the oldest, was the weariest and the most concerned—also the one willing to marry Altsax’s featherbrained daughter just so Fiona might someday have a decent dowry.

“I have to check on the kitchens, Ian, and make sure that dimwitted Hetta McKinley didn’t forget the butter dishes again, and Eustace Miller has been lurking on the maids’ stairway so he can make calf’s eyes at—”

“Come, you.” Ian tucked her hand over his arm. “You deserve a few minutes with family more than the maids need to be protected from Eustace Miller’s calf eyes. Let the maids have some fun, and let yourself take five minutes to catch your breath. Go change into your finery and meet us in the family parlor. I’ll need your feminine perspective if I’m to coax Altsax’s daughter up the church aisle.”

Ian had typical MacGregor height and green eyes to go with dark hair and a handsome smile—none of which was worth a single groat. In Asher’s continued absence, Ian was also the laird, and well on his way to being officially recognized as the earl. While neither honor generated coin, the earldom allowed him the prospect of marrying an heiress with a title-hungry papa.

Mary Fran did not bustle off to change her dress for any of those reasons, or even because she needed to stay abreast of whatever her three brothers were thinking regarding Ian’s scheme to marry wealth.

She heeded her brother’s direction because she wanted that wee dram—wanted it far too much.

***

Matthew enjoyed a leisurely soak in a marble bathing chamber that boasted every modern convenience, then dressed and prepared to find his way down to the formal parlor. As he moved through the house, he noted the signs of good care: a faint odor of beeswax and lemon oil rising from the gleaming woodwork, sparkling clean windows, fresh flowers in each corridor, an absence of fingerprints on the walls and mirrors.

Lady Mary Frances, or her minions, took the care of Balfour House seriously. A swift drum of heels from around the next corner had Matthew stopping and cocking an ear. A man did not lose the habit of stealth simply because he was no longer billeted to a brewing war zone.

The hint of acrid cigar smoke warned Matthew that his father was in the vicinity.

“Miss MacGregor, perhaps you’d allow me to provide you an escort down to the parlor?” Altsax spoke in the unctuous tones of a man condescending to an inferior, though Lady Mary Frances was arguably the baron’s social superior.

Matthew eased far enough down the corridor to see that the lady was attired in a dinner gown of green-and-white plaid that did marvelous things for her eyes—and riveted the baron’s attention on her décolletage.

“That’s gracious of you, Baron.” Her smile was beautiful, though it did not reach her eyes. “I hope Mr. Daniels will escort your womenfolk?”

The baron winged his arm. “I’m sure Matthew or your own brothers will see to that duty.”

As the lady tucked her fingers around the baron’s elbow, Matthew’s gut began to churn. Altsax was never polite to anybody, much less to pretty young women, unless he was maneuvering toward his own ends.

“So why aren’t you married, Miss MacGregor?” Altsax stroked his fingers over her hand. “You’re comely enough, well born, and intended for better than spinsterhood as your brothers’ household drudge.”

The observation was Altsax’s version of flattery, no doubt. Matthew felt a familiar urge to scream, or find a fast horse and gallop straight back to the Crimea.

“Marriage seems to be the topic of the day, my lord.” While Matthew watched in a conveniently positioned mirror, Lady Mary Frances smiled back at her escort, revealing a number of strong white teeth. “You are blessed with two comely daughters, Baron. It’s a pity your baroness could not accompany them on this journey.”

As if Altsax would have allowed
that
. Matthew’s mother knew better than to come along when her husband had decreed it otherwise, and quite honestly, Matthew envied his mother her freedom from Altsax’s company.

“My wife and I have been married for thirty-some years, my dear. I hardly need to keep her underfoot at all times. Marriage is, after all, still a business undertaking among the better classes. I’m sure you’d agree.”

Altsax walked with her toward the sweeping main staircase, a monument to carved oak that suggested at some bygone point in the MacGregor family history, coin had been abundant.

Matthew had an instant’s premonition of the baron’s intent, a gut-clenching moment of knowing what was about to take place. The baron took his opportunity at the turn in the hallway where carpet gave way to gleaming bare floor. He made a show of catching his toe on the carpet and jostling his companion sideways with enough force that she fetched up against the wall.

This allowed Altsax to mash into her bodily, and his hand—like one of the big, hairy spiders common to the tropics—to land squarely on the lady’s generous, fashionably exposed bosom.

“I beg your pardon, Miss MacGregor.” Altsax made an effort to right himself which of course involved clumsily, almost roughly, groping the lady. Matthew was about to reveal himself to his disgrace of a father, when the baron flew across the hallway as if propelled out of a cannon.

“Baron, do forgive me!” Lady Mary Frances was standing upright and looking creditably dismayed. “I did not mean to step on your foot, I sincerely did not. Are you all right, my lord?”

Her strategy left Altsax trying to look dignified and innocent of his crimes while not putting much weight on one foot. “The fault is mine, Miss MacGregor. I beg your pardon most sincerely. Shall we join your family downstairs?”

“Of course.”

As they moved toward the stairs, Matthew noted that this time, Altsax did not offer the lady his arm.

First skirmish to Lady Mary Frances, though as Matthew waited for a silent moment at the top of the stairs, it occurred to him that rising to the lady’s defense might have been enjoyable.

Tricky, given that he’d be defending her from his own father, but enjoyable.

***

“A word with you, if you please, Lady Mary Frances.”

Mary Fran tore off a bite of scone and regarded Mr. Matthew Daniels where he stood next to her place at the breakfast table. The baron had taken a tray out to the terrace, there to read his newspaper as he let a perfectly lovely breakfast grow cold at his elbow, while Ian and Miss Augusta Merrick, the younger of the two chaperones, had disappeared to the library.

And now Mary Fran’s favorite meal of the day—sometimes her only decent meal of the day—was going to be disturbed by this serious gentleman waiting to assist her to her feet. No doubt Mr. Daniels’s shaving water had been too hot, or not hot enough. Perhaps he objected to the scent of heather on his linen, or he’d found a footman using the maids’ staircase.

Mary Fran folded a napkin around the last of her scone and put it in her pocket, then placed her hand in Daniels’s and let him assist her to her feet. Thank God her brothers weren’t on hand to see such a farce.

“In private.” The gentleman kept his eyes front as he appended that requirement, as if admitting such a thing made him queasy.

“Shall we walk in the garden, Mr. Daniels? Pace off some of our breakfast?”

“That will serve.” He tucked her hand around his arm, which had Mary Fran about grinding her teeth. They skirted the terrace and minced along until they were a good distance from the house, and still Mr. Daniels said nothing.

“Is there a point to this outing, Mr. Daniels? I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve a household to run, and though you are our guest, my strolling about here among the flowers isn’t going to get the beds made up.”

He stopped walking and gazed down at her with a surprised expression. “You do that yourself?”

“I know how. I expect you do as well.”

Something flashed through his eyes, humor, possibly. He was one of few men outside her family Mary Fran had to look up to. She’d been an inch taller than Gordie, and she had treasured that inch every day of her so-called marriage.

“I do know how to make up a cot,” he said. “Public school imbues a man with all manner of esoteric skills. The military does as well. Shall we sit?”

He was determined on this privacy business, because he was gesturing to a bench that backed up against the tallest hedge in the garden. They’d be hidden from view on that bench.

Even if she were amenable, Mary Fran doubted Mr. Daniels was going to take liberties. Good Lord, if he was this serious about his dallying, then heaven help the ladies he sought to charm. Though as she took a seat, it struck her with a certainty that Matthew Daniels needn’t bother charming anybody. For all his English reserve in proper company, he’d plunder and pillage, devil take the hindmost, when he decided on an objective.

Former cavalry could be like that.

“You are smiling, my lady.”

And he was watching her mouth where he stood over her. Mary Fran let her smile blossom into a grin as she arranged her skirts. “I’m truant, sitting out here in the garden. I suppose it’s fair play, given that my brothers—save for Ian—are off gallivanting about with your sisters and your aunt.” And Lord knew what Ian was up to with the spinster cousin—probably prying secrets from the poor lady.

“About my womenfolk.” He took the place beside her without her permission, though she would not have objected. “I have sisters.”

He had two. The lovely Eugenia Daniels, whom Aunt Eulalie had spotted as a possible wealthy bride for Ian, and the younger, altogether likable Hester Daniels. Mary Fran held her peace, because Mr. Daniels was mentally pacing up to something, and he struck her as man who would not be hurried—she was familiar with the type.

“I have sisters whose happiness means a great deal to me,” he went on, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his thighs. “You have brothers.”

“My blessing and my curse,” she said, wondering
when
he’d get to his point.

“My sisters are dear to me.” He flicked a brooding glance at her over his shoulder. “As I’m sure you are dear to your brothers.”

“Their hot meals and clean sheets are dear to them.”

He sat up abruptly. “They would cheerfully die for you or kill for you. Not for the hot meals or the clean sheets, but for you.”

She regarded him for a quizzical moment, trying to fathom his intentions. Insight struck as she studied the square line of his jaw and the way sunlight found the red highlights in his blond hair. “They won’t kill your father while he’s a guest in our home. Rest easy on that point.”

“I cannot rest easy, as you say.” He hunched forward again, the fabric of his morning coat pulling taut across broad shoulders. “My father’s regard for women generally lacks a certain…”

“He’s a randy old jackass,” Mary Fran said. “I don’t hold it against him.”

Whatever comment the situation called for, it wasn’t that. No earl’s daughter, not even a Scottish earl’s daughter running a glorified guesthouse ought to be so plainspoken.

“I’m sorry,” she said, gaze on her lap. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. Your da’s a guest in my home, and I’m responsible…”

“Hush.” His finger came to rest on her lips, and when she looked up at him, he was smiling at her. He dropped his finger, but the smile lingered, crinkling the corners of his eyes and putting a light in his gaze that was almost… gentle.

God in heaven.
The man was abruptly, stunningly attractive. Mary Fran felt a heat spreading out from that spot on her mouth where his bare finger had touched her.

“My father
is
a randy old jackass, I was searching for those very words. He can offend without meaning to, and sometimes, I fear, when he does mean to.”

“He’s not the first titled man to show uncouth behavior toward women.” She linked her fingers in her lap lest she touch her lip as he had.

“No, but he’s my father. If he should come to a premature end, all the burdens of his title will fall upon me, and that, rather than filial devotion, makes me hope your brothers will not have to challenge him to pistols at dawn.”

The daft man was genuinely worried. “My brothers are Scottish, but they don’t lack sense. If Ian took to dueling with his guests, God Almighty could live next door, and the most baseborn coal nabob wouldn’t give a farthing to spend a day with us. Her Majesty has just about frowned dueling out of existence.”

Plain speaking wasn’t always inappropriate, and Mary Fran sensed Matthew Daniels could tolerate a few home truths.

“I fear, my lady, you underestimate your brothers’ devotion to you, and”—he held up a staying hand when she would have interrupted—“you underestimate the depths of my father’s more crass inclinations.”

Mary Fran studied him, studied the serious planes of his face, and noted a little scar along the left side of his jaw. “I can handle your father, Mr. Daniels. I won’t go running to my brothers in a fit of the weeps because he tries to take liberties.”

“Tries to take liberties again, don’t you mean?”

He had blue eyes—blue, blue eyes that regarded her with wry sternness.

“He’s too slow, Mr. Daniels. He can but try, and I shall thwart him.”

He peered at her, his lips thinning as he came to some conclusion. “Your brother had the opportunity to take my father very much to task the other evening for a verbal slight to you. Balfour instead suggested I see my sire to bed. I’d suspect the reputation of the Scots’ temper to be overrated, except I’ve seen Highland regiments in action.”