The Devil Wears Kilts (17 page)

“
I’m
pacing. You’re listening.”

This was coming very close to being beyond his ability to tolerate, but he took a slow breath and dropped onto the bench. “Go on, then.”

True to her word, she walked to the row of roses and then back past him to a chest-high hedge. “Very well.” Finally she faced him again. “
You
are the problem, my lord. Since you’ve come to London, have you actually run across any Englishman—any at all—who haven’t been kind and helpful to you?”

“I—”

“I’m not finished. Not everyone in Mayfair is my friend. I find some of these people … despicable and hateful and petty and small. My point being, they’re just people. So when you ride in and start calling everyone Sasannach”—and this time she pronounced it very carefully and correctly—“you’re doing them—and yourself—a disservice.”

“So if I’m hearing ye correctly,” he said slowly, using every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep his seat, “where we lay our heads doesnae matter to ye or to anyone else? A man’s a saint or a devil depending on his own preference, and I’ve made myself a devil?”

“No. Well, yes and no. Of course some people hate others for … where they lay their heads, as you said. But if you don’t stop being so suspicious and so angry at … everyone, you will be the cause of your own downfall.”

“Hm. Fascinating.” Slowly he stood. “Ye willnae mind, I assume, that while I consider yer wisdom I go collect my sister and remove her from this Sasannach household?”

She clenched her hands together. “Maddening,” she muttered. “Your sister doesn’t wish to speak to you. And last night she stated that she intends never to return to Scotland again.”

Ranulf blinked. “What?” he growled, ice piercing his heart.

“I won’t keep you from her, of course, but I suggest that you give her a day or two to remember how much she loves you and to forget what a spectacle you created last night.” She curtsied. “Good day, my lord.”

Ranulf turned on his heel and strode for the carriage drive. In his entire life, even when his father had been killed, even when Bear had been shot, he couldn’t remember feeling such … intolerable frustration. He wanted to shout at the sky, he wanted to grab Charlotte and shake her, he wanted to kiss her senseless and bury himself deep inside her until she cried out in pleasure.

At the edge of the garden he stopped and turned around. “Does this mean ye’ve done with me, lass?”

He watched as her shoulders rose and fell. “I suppose that’s up to you,” she said slowly, and went around the back of the house.

When he reached the drive he hoisted Fergus up onto the main seat of the phaeton himself. “Debny, stay aboot here for a time and make certain Rowena’s seen to. Have Peter inform Lord Hest that he’ll be staying on here. I doubt Hest will object.”

The groom looked puzzled. “Did someaught happen, m’laird?”

“Aye, someaught happened. But nothing to concern ye.”

By concentrating on breathing and nothing else, Ranulf made it back to Tall House without exploding. With Debny still out he unharnessed the team and went to saddle Stirling himself. Standing about and waiting would have been intolerable, anyway. Evidently sensing his mood, Fergus stayed by the stable door and watched in silence.

At Glengask, as full as the house generally was, finding a moment of solitude was as simple as walking down the path to the river. Here he could be alone in an office or bedchamber, but it wasn’t solitude. Servants lurked, and just beyond the wood and plaster walls a city seethed, all ears and tongues and spite.

Ranulf swung up on Stirling, ducked through the stable doors, and set off north at as fast a pace as he could manage. It seemed to take forever for the houses and then farms to thin, for the trees and glades to appear. Only then did he cut off the road, kneeing the gelding into a hard gallop.

On and on they went, until nothing lay around them for miles but scattered trees, streams, and meadows. He and the horse and the dog stopped, winded. And only then did he begin swearing, bellowing, ranting at the empty, overcast sky.

From the day he’d been born he’d carried the title of Earl of Dombray. From his earliest memories he’d known that he would one day be the Marquis of Glengask—and more significantly, the chief of Clan MacLawry. He hadn’t expected to inherit it all at the age of fifteen, but he’d managed. He’d led his family, and his clan, and brought his cotters employment and the security of knowing they could remain on the land where they and their fathers and their father’s fathers had been born.

In all that time, in all of his thirty-one years and in all the battles both literal and figurative he’d fought to protect his people, no one—
no one—
had ever spoken to him the way Charlotte Hanover just had. She’d put him on the rack, cracked his bones, and flayed him till he bled. And she’d done it with a smile and an apology, as if it were for his own good.

The rain that had been threatening since last evening finally let loose. Ranulf lifted his face to the sky, willing the chill wet to cool his raging temper. What damned nerve she had, to tell him
he
was the unreasonable one, to say he created trouble where there was none, to insist that no one alive had done the harms he railed against and that that thereby made his anger unfitting and dangerous to those he loved.

And then at the end, when she’d so coolly informed him that Rowena wanted nothing more to do with him or with Scotland … she’d pierced him to the heart. He’d spent his damned
life
protecting his family and his people, in exchange for what? Failure? Being called a fool?

For a long moment he closed his eyes, letting the rain run down his face and seep into his skin. As his temper eased, one thing became clear; either he was wrong, or Charlotte was wrong.

In truth, he
had
spent very little time in England, and this was already the longest he’d ever stayed in London. He didn’t so much know the English aristocracy as he knew
of
them. His mother had constantly flung them up as examples of what she wished her boys were—proper, mild, and above all, English. Of course he’d hated even the idea of the Sasannach nobles.

When Eleanor killed herself and her brother Myles came to look after her orphaned children, Ranulf had detested the man for the way he spoke, the way he dressed, the way he’d insisted that Bear and Arran and Rowena learn the latest English dances and English literature and English rules and laws. Eventually he’d joined in as well, but only because he wanted to know his enemy as well as he possibly could.

His enemy.
Aye, the English had done terrible things to the Highlanders, taking away bits and pieces of culture and pride every time the Scots pushed against the harness. His own grandfather, Angus MacLawry, had been killed at Culloden. Why, then, had his father seen fit to marry the most English of Englishwomen? Had it been to try to convince her to love the Highlands, or so that his children would have a sense of what it was to be English?

Finally he shook water from his eyes and turned Stirling south again, back toward London. Damn Charlotte Hanover for making him question every point of his life, for making him wonder if he’d turned left when he’d been meant to turn right.

He needed to think, and he needed to plan. He could force his sister to return to Glengask, but he couldn’t make her wish to be there. Ordering Charlotte to keep her opinions about him to herself wouldn’t cause her to change them—if he could order her to do anything. A bit of persuasion would seem to be in order, but first he would have to see about persuading himself.

Evidently he needed to make the acquaintance of London and the
haute ton
before he could decide whether they were actually worth knowing or not. And he needed to decide if he was willing to risk becoming better acquainted with Charlotte, given that in five days she’d already managed to upend his life. In a fortnight she could well kill him—unless she were correct in all this, and meant to save him from himself.

When he returned to Tall House, Owen and Debny were standing on the front portico, ignoring the rain and arguing over whether they needed to go out searching for him or not.

“M’laird,” the footman said, relief showing in every muscle of his stocky body. “Ye had us near frighted to death. Debny should never have left ye to go oot on yer own.”

“I didnae—”

Ranulf silenced them both with a look. “Debny did as I asked him to. End of discussion.”

“Fine, fine. But ye and Fergus are wetter than the ocean.”

“Dry off Fergus,” Ranulf returned, heading for the stairs so he could change his clothes. “And then go find that solicitor—what was his name?—and bring him here.”

“Mr. Black?” Owen offered stiffly. “The soft fellow with the damp hands?”

“Aye. And don’t insult him when ye’ve fetched him.”

He couldn’t see the look the two servants exchanged, but he could feel it. They could think him mad if they wished; for all he knew, he might be.

“Why am I fetching him, m’laird, if I might ask?”

“Ye may not.”

*   *   *

Arran MacLawry took the letter Cooper, the butler, handed him and opened it as he reached the breakfast room. Ranulf generally wrote short, pointed letters, instructions about what needed doing and when, without much other flourish or description.

As he opened this missive, though, a second page fell to the floor, both pieces filled to the very edges with ink in their oldest brother’s spare hand. At the first sentence he stopped in his tracks. “Munro!” he yelled. “Bear!”

A moment later his younger brother, half dressed and dark hair sticking out from one side of his head like a crazed weed, stumbled into the breakfast room. “What the devil’s got into yer bonnet?” he demanded, dropping into a chair, thunking his head onto the table, and gesturing for coffee.

Arran cleared his throat. “‘Arran,’” he read aloud, “‘In future correspondence you’ll find me at Gilden House, 12 Market Street, the residence I’ve purchased in London.’”

Munro’s head shot up from the tabletop. “What? That’s from Ranulf? He’s bought a house? In London?”

“Aye. That’s what he says.”

“Why, in God’s name?”

“Let me go on, will ye? To continue, ‘Rowena has declared that she means never to return to Scotland. I may therefore be here for longer than we’d anticipated, until such time as I can persuade her otherwise.’”

“‘Persuade’?” Bear echoed, scowling. “Put her arse into a coach and drive her home, is more like.”

“Evidently not.”

“I wonder what Lach’ll have to say about that. Yesterday he complained that Winnie didnae send him a letter.”

That was interesting, Arran decided. “Wasnae he complaining that she wrote him every day?”

“Aye. He said she was too full of girlish glee, and now he wants to know what she’s up to that keeps her from writing.”

“She’s up to refusing to come home. Tell him that, and see what he does.”

“I’m nae certain I want to know.” Bear grunted. “Ran wants a love match, but poor Lach’s caught between his chief and a lass who’s been chasing after him since she could walk.” He shook his dark, disheveled head. “If Ranulf’s nae dragging her home, then what’s he up to?”

Arran perused the rest of the letter, three sides of closely written instruction, then sat down heavily at his brother’s side. “He’s gone mad.”

“What else does he say?”

“That Berling’s in London, along with the Campbells’ grandson, that we should remain here, and that some lass named Charlotte is full of herself and needs a lesson or two as to why she shouldnae scold a MacLawry.”

Munro’s brow furrowed. “Charlotte. Isn’t she the other Hanover lass? Jane’s sister or someaught?”

“I dunnae know. I didnae pay that much attention to it all.” Now Arran was beginning to think he should have paid quite a bit more attention to what was happening in London. “Does any of this make sense to ye?”

“Nae. Let me see it.”

Arran handed Munro the letter, watching as his younger brother read through it with much the same expression of confusion that he’d likely worn himself. “Did ye notice how many times he names this Charlotte?” he asked

“Aye,” his brother returned. “More than he mentions Rowena.” Bear pushed to his feet and handed the letter back. “Well, that settles it.”

“Settles what?”

“I’m going to London.”

Bloody hell.
“Ye are not. Ran says we’re to stay here.”

“Someaught’s afoot down there, and half the bastards we’re looking out fer here are doon there. Ye can stay behind.”

Arran took a breath. “Bear, ye need to stay here. I’ll go.”

“And why should ye be the one to—”

“He says Rowena’s embarrassed by us. Who’s more ‘us’ than anyone?”

Bear frowned. “I can behave.”

“Ye gave her a saddle for her eighteenth birthday. And I’d wager the reason ye were still to bed at nearly noon is that ye’re sharing a pillow with Flora Peterkin. Or is it Bethia Peterkin? If ye cannae keep yer own affairs straight, ye cannae expect to be of help to someone else. Especially not Ranulf.”

“Fine, then.” Bear slumped back into his chair. “Ye’d best see this straightened oot, Arran, or ye’ll find me riding down on yer heels. Or I’ll put a wee whisper in Lachlan’s ear and turn him loose.”

“I’ll see to it.” And he would also see who this Charlotte lass was, and discover why Ranulf couldn’t seem to stop talking about her even when he clearly had more trouble than he could wish for on his hands.

*   *   *

Jane tugged Charlotte into the morning room and gestured at the floor. “Help,” she said with a laugh.

She and Winnie had laid out every invitation they’d received, for breakfasts, luncheons, recitals, picnics, dinners, the theater, soirees, and even a proposed excursion in rowboats up the Thames. Seeing them all arranged by date and time like that, the sheer volume was stunning.

“What do you need help with?” she asked, reaching down to pet Una as the hound sat on her foot.

Winnie, on the far side of the stacks, pointed. “For the seventeenth we have one breakfast invitation, two for morning excursions, four luncheon invitations, three more for afternoon visits or shopping, and a soiree and an evening at the theater. What do we do?”