Snowy Night with a Highlander (16 page)

The woman, however, was not what Jamie had expected. Old Willie had said she was English, but he’d not mentioned her gray hair or her rounded middle. Jamie had expected a vixen with a sultry gaze and curving figure, a woman who was a master at depriving men of their money.

This woman looked as if she ought to be waulking wool.

Jamie lowered his hands. “I am Jamie Campbell, Laird of Dundavie.” He waited for her inevitable gasp of alarm when she realized she had done the unthinkable by threatening a man of power and means.

She did not gasp. She hoisted her gun up a wee bit more. “That means naught to me. There are more Campbells roaming these hills than there are trees. Go on, then—off with you. I think it best you not be seen on this side of the hills,” she said. “The Brodies have no love for the Campbells.”

“The feeling,” he said, a little miffed that she would so eagerly embrace the Brodies’ side, “is entirely mutual. Nevertheless, I have come in search of a woman who has become financially involved with my uncle Hamish.” He cocked a brow at her, silently daring her to deny it.

“If you mean to imply that
I
am involved with him, I am most assuredly
not
.”

She was quick to deny it, wasn’t she? And a wee bit nervous, as well, which Jamie read as guilt. “Might I at least know to whom I am speaking?” He took a step closer, putting his hand on the swing gate.

“
Stop!
You are trespassing on my land!”

He snorted. “This land belongs to Gordon Brodie.”

“That,” she sniffed, “is but a small detail. He has let me this land, and therefore it is mine. Now please take your leave before I am pressed to defend myself in a most violent manner.”

If she thought she could shoo him away like a fly, she was mistaken. Jamie pushed the gate open. “
Diah
, for someone who claims no’ to be acquainted with Hamish, you are eager to see me gone, are you no’, then? Have you attended the pony races near Nairn?”

“I
will
shoot you if you come one step closer, and the Brodie boys who come round every Monday will cart your carcass off and toss it into the sea.”

“I’ve yet to meet a Brodie who was willing to expend that much effort. Much less one capable of carting me anywhere,” he said brusquely. “Madam, I shall speak even more plainly. I am in search of the Englishwoman who lives in the cottage by the old Norse cairn.” He pointed grandly up the path he’d traveled from Dundavie to a crumbling old cairn plainly visible at the top of the hill.

He continued, “There are some who believe she has divested my uncle of one thousand pounds, a mighty sum. And while I would be the first to say a man is free to give his money to any lass he wants, I take issue when the man is no’ in his right mind. This is a man who forgets to belt his plaid and believes that he is the friend of an English lord who lives alone in the hills here. He canna remember the names of his children, yet he knows the names of the angels who visit him at night. Anyone who might take money from my uncle takes cruel advantage.”

Her cheeks reddened like a pair of apples; she cocked the trigger. “Leave me now, or die in the garden.”

Jamie frowned. He did not relish the thought of corralling an old woman and taking her gun. The best course of action was to return with Duff and a few of his men. “Very well,” he said with a shrug. “Perhaps you might be persuaded to recall your acquaintance when I bring a witness or two round to remind you, aye? Good day, madam.” He touched his hat and turned away toward his horse.

He heard the blunderbuss fire a split second before he felt the burn of lead enter his body. He fell, landing with a great
thud
, his head striking a rock—and then everything went black.

*   *   *

Funny how small, chance moments could alter one’s world so completely. Daria Babcock had never really thought of it until now. She wasn’t generally one to contemplate fate or the meaning of life; she’d never engaged in such lengthy introspection. But then again, she’d never found herself on the side of a road in the Scottish wilds, utterly alone, until today.

Well. Not
utterly,
as there was a dog, but she hardly counted him. After her initial fear of being mauled when he’d wandered out of the forest, she’d quickly discovered him to be completely useless. He was black, with spots of white on his paws and his chest, and presently had folded his legs to lie beside her trunk, his head propped against it, his eyes closed, as if he had no more pressing issues to attend to than his nap.

Mr. Mungo Brodie hadn’t seemed particularly concerned when he’d deposited her here—he’d mentioned only that her destination was “just a wee bit up the road, then.”

That “road” was little more than a rabbit trail. Into dark woods. With not a soul in sight.

Daria glanced up to the treetops and the robin’s-egg-blue sky. She guessed it was the middle of the afternoon, which meant she still had a bit of time before it turned dark.

Which in turn gave her more time to study the ridiculous twists of fate that had brought her here. For her current predicament—side of road, all alone—clearly deserved some study. “I wish I knew the moment that everything changed,” she said aloud.

The dog’s ear twitched.

Perhaps it had begun a month or so ago, when she was feeling rather cross. It had seemed to her that a veritable explosion of births had occurred in and around Hadley Green, and that scores of pink-cheeked cherubs in carriages were being pushed about by their nurses as their gurgling laughter drifted in through open windows.

On one particularly sobering afternoon, she’d attended tea at the Ashwood estate, where she’d been gob smacked at Lady Ashwood’s coy announcement to the assembled group of Hadley Green ladies that she was expecting her second child.

“A
child
!” Lady Horncastle, the grand dame of Hadley Green, had swiveled her silver head around to squint at the fair-haired Lady Ashwood through her lorgnette, clearly as stunned as Daria. “But you were only
just
delivered of your son, my dear,” she said, as if Lady Ashwood might rethink her pregnancy with the startling news that she already
had
a child.

Lady Ashwood had blushed and laughingly said, “I remarked the same to my husband, but I think he will not be happy until every room at Ashwood is occupied by a child.”

“That is
quite
a lot of children,” Lady Horncastle had sniffed. “Your husband is surely aware that if one desires a herd, one may invest in cattle. It is really much simpler.”

The announcement had made Daria quite cross, too. She desperately wanted a baby of her own, even a herd of them. Every time Daria held a baby she felt an uncomfortably deep tug in her chest. She would like to be married, to be a mother, a wife, to have some purpose other than to attend teas. Yet in spite of having spent the last three years endeavoring to put herself in every conceivable avenue of society, she had not even a whiff of a proper marriage prospect. That wound was being liberally salted by the fact that all of her close acquaintances were now married and bearing children, and on that particular day, it had sent Daria drifting onto a sea of melancholy.

She was the last debutante of Hadley Green. The last one of her social circle, the last one without an offer.

Daria had drifted home on that sea, but it was no better there, for she had the misfortune of living with two constant reminders of what was missing from her life. Her parents were like two cooing doves, forever in each other’s company, content with their own society. Daria often felt as if even she were intruding on their secret little world. At times she was touched by their devotion to one another, but at other times, she was annoyed by it.

When Daria had arrived home from the tea, she’d found her parents huddled together before the hearth in the salon against the chill of an early spring day, their heads bent together over a letter. Daria had thought nothing of it.

“I will admit,” she said, holding up one gloved finger to the dog, “that there are times I am entirely distracted by my own pathetic state of being.”

He gave her a single thump of his tail.

It wasn’t until supper that Daria had even noticed the subtle change in her parents. The evening lacked their typical effusive commentary on their blissful day.

So Daria had filled the air with a recitation of events from that afternoon, eager to relieve herself of her vexations. However, she was not rewarded with an appropriately commiserating response to her complaints of having no prospects or hope for a future. She’d sighed loudly to demonstrate her exasperation as Griswold, their butler-groundskeeper-footman-valet, lumbered about the table, removing their soup bowls.

“Is anyone listening?” Daria demanded.

“Of course!” her mother said. “You were saying, dearest?”

“That my life is not to be borne, that’s what,” Daria said a bit missishly. “And that you and Pappa might take me to London for the Season,” she added hopefully.

“Oh, I think not,” her father had said, his attention on the plate Griswold placed before him.

“Why not?” Daria had asked, stung by the swiftness of his dismissal. “It’s not as if I have any prospects here.”

“We are not suited to London,” her mother said. “And you do have prospects, darling. Lord Horncastle is very attentive to you—”

“I should rather perish than marry Lord Horncastle! I am aware that Horncastle is the only gentleman in Hadley Green with a fortune, but it does not make up for his odious tendencies to drink and pout!”

Yet her mother had smiled thinly and said with great condescension, “You will find a nice young man when the time is right, dearest.”

“The time is far past
right
, Mamma. I am one and
twenty
! Am I to waste away in this tiny little village without an occupation? I feel restless and useless.” She could almost hear her good friend Charity Scott whispering in her ear:
“The point is that here in Hadley Green, you are without true society. There might be members of the Quality milling about from time to time, but the
real
society is in London. You
must
go to London.”

“You are very useful to us,” her father had objected.

Daria had groaned. She loved her parents, of course she did. She was their only child, and they’d doted on her all her life. If they had one failing, it was that they did not concern themselves with the proper way things were done. They were quite content with their private life and seemed to think Daria should be just as content. “Really, Pappa, what woman is not married at my age?”

Her father had shrugged thoughtfully. “Charity Scott is not.”

Yes, well, Charity was not married because she’d borne a child out of wedlock years ago and refused to name the father. “Charity said her brother, Lord Eberlin, would give me a proper letter of introduction, and that one could put oneself at the top of society with such a letter. Charity said that all one must do is wedge her foot firmly in the door, and the rest is up to her.”

“It would seem Miss Scott is a font of knowledge about town,” her mother had mused.

Daria had looked at her mother, and then her father, who was gazing at his wife with such concern that Daria felt herself on the verge of shrieking to the heavens for someone, anyone, to
listen
to her. It was just as she’d said to Charity that very day: no one understood how bleak her situation was.

She’d looked at her parents, thoroughly exasperated. “All right,” she’d said firmly. “You must tell me what is the matter. Why are you both acting so strangely? And what is the letter you are holding in your lap, Mamma?”

“Your mother has received a bit of unwelcome news,” Daria’s father had said.

“Richard!”

“She’s not a child, Beth. You can’t hide it from her.”

“What has happened?” Fear began to bloom. “Is it Mamie? Has something happened to Mamie?” she demanded, referring to her grandmother.

“Yes,” her father said.

“No!”
her mother cried at the same time. “No, she is very well, Daria.”

“But the letter is from her,” Daria had pressed. “And she has told you something that has distressed you.”

“I don’t want to trouble you with it—”

“For God’s sake, Beth,” Daria’s father had said. Then to Daria, “Mamie is in a bit of financial difficulty. But it’s nothing that a few pounds won’t remedy straightaway.”

Daria might have believed that was true had her mother not bit her lip to keep from speaking. “I don’t understand. She’s needed money before and it hasn’t distressed you like this.”

“This time it is quite a large sum,” her mother had explained. “Your father must travel to Scotland. We cannot possibly entrust that sum to anyone else.”

“Honestly, I don’t see why she doesn’t come home,” Daria had complained. “She went to care for her sister, and her sister has been gone for two years. There is nothing to keep her there.”

“She is not ready to return to England,” her mother said quickly. “Really, love, this is nothing over which you should concern yourself. Your father will go to her and that is that.”

“It’s decided, then, is it? I’m to have no say in it?” her father had responded. “Beth, darling . . . I can’t imagine making the journey without you. What if—”

“Someone should be here with Daria,” her mother had firmly interrupted.

“Oh please, no, Mamma. The summer will be tedious enough without having to graft orchids for the two of you.
I’ll
go,” she had said suddenly.

It had seemed such a brilliant idea, the perfect solution to her doldrums—a summer in Scotland, away from Hadley Green and all her happy friends with their beautiful babies.

But her mother said instantly, “That’s absurd.”

Those two words had sealed Daria’s determination. What was absurd was to continue on as she had been. “Why?” she’d demanded. “I am perfectly capable of carrying a bit of money, and I’ve missed Mamie terribly. She’s not been home in ages.”

“To begin, you cannot travel all that way without your parents or a chaperone. What would people think?”