The Devil Wears Kilts (35 page)

“So. Are ye saying I—”

“I’m saying you should have bashed George Gerdens-Dailey. Or Berling. Or Calder. Or at the least made certain they all knew you could have done so.”

For a long moment he sat beside her, just looking at her. With her legs curled beneath her bare arse and her hands just showing beneath his pushed-up sleeves, she looked terribly demure and terribly arousing all at the same time.

“I thought a brawl was the first resort only of inferior minds,” he drawled.

“I was wrong.”

“Can ye say that again? I didnae quite make it oot.”

“Awful man,” she muttered, slipping beneath his arm and tucking herself up against his side. “Here, two Englishmen fighting over some idiotic matter of pride or honor
is
ridiculous. For you, when you punch Lord Berling in the nose you aren’t doing it because … well, because you’re big and strong and you can. You’re doing it to warn him and his to keep their distance, because it’s an alternative to having to kill one of them.”

“Ye almost make me sound reasonable, Charlotte.”

“You are almost reasonable.” Leaning up, she kissed his jaw.

“Deaths still happen, lass,” he made himself say. “And the dearer someone is to me, the more likely they are to be hurt.” He sighed. “And I’m nae certain that a brawl or two would ever change that.”

“I’m willing to—”

“M’laird!” Owen shouted, pounding frantically on the closed sitting room door. “Trouble!”

Ranulf was at the door in two strides. “What trouble?” he demanded, yanking it open.

“One of the new stable boys was oot walking Stirling, and he saw Laird Arran and Lady Winnie surrounded by a group of men. I—”

“Get dressed,” he ordered over his shoulder, dread freezing his heart, and went pounding down the stairs. Fergus and Una were yowling at the front door, and with a curse he flung it open. He didn’t need to ask where his brother and sister were; the dogs would find them. This was what happened when he relaxed, when he took a moment to fall in love—even when he knew nothing could come of it.

Charlotte dove for her gown and yanked it on, taking only a moment to knot the ribbons at the back closed. Stepping into her shoes, she ran for the door, her heart beating so fast she thought it might explode from her chest. If anything happened to his siblings, Ranulf would never forgive himself. But if something happened to him, she wouldn’t survive.

She reached the front door as Owen came hurrying out from the servants’ hall, a huge gun in his hands. “Where were they?” she asked, falling in with him.

“Ye should stay inside the house, m’lady,” he wheezed, turning up the street. The groom, Debny, was several yards ahead of them. Ranulf and the dogs had evidently outstripped all of them.

Charlotte ignored the warning; this wasn’t about her. And her presence could possibly prevent whatever might be about to happen. Or she hoped it would. If the situation called for it, at this moment she found herself more than willing to punch someone. The MacLawrys were her clan, after all.

Just inside the borders of a small park tucked behind a square of lovely old houses, she saw them. No one was on the ground and no one was bleeding, though she had no idea why—or whether that bit of good fortune would continue. Seven men stood around the two MacLawrys, clearly keeping them from either advancing or retreating.

Ranulf ahead of her slowed to a walk, the dogs keeping pace on either side of him. Their hackles were raised, and she could hear the low, snarling growls even from thirty feet away. “Was there someaught ye wanted, Berling?” the marquis called out in a booming voice that held more danger in it than either of the dogs’ growls.

The earl was there, she noticed, and so were George Gerdens-Dailey and that awful Charles Calder.
Oh, no.
Were they armed? She knew that Ranulf was not, because he’d been half naked just a few minutes ago.

“We thought we might get a few things settled,” Berling returned, glancing from the marquis to the donkey-sized dogs and back again.

“At least three of ’em have pistols, Ran,” his brother called. Arran had one arm around Winnie, putting himself between her and Gerdens-Dailey. The black-haired beauty looked truly frightened, and given how carefully her three brothers had protected her for her entire life, Charlotte wasn’t surprised.

Stopping a few feet away from the group, Ranulf stood with his hands at his sides, his stance looking as relaxed as if he were chatting at a soiree—or even more relaxed than that. She knew him well enough to see the tension in his straight shoulders, but she doubted any but his own would know it.

“What is it ye want to settle, then?” he asked smoothly.

“I owe you a broken nose, at the least,” Berling returned, a slight, nasty smile on his face. “That’s a start.”

“I’m right here, Berling. My sister and brother have naught to do with yer ugly face.”

“You expect me to do something with those beasts standing there? I wouldn’t call that a fair fight, Glengask.”

Ranulf actually laughed. The sound raised the hairs on the back of Charlotte’s neck. “So ye want a
fair
fight now, do ye? Ye’re a damned
cladhaire,
Donald Gerdens.”

The earl slid a look at the man standing beside him. “Cousin?”

“He called ye a coward,” Gerdens-Dailey translated. “And I’d have to agree with that.”

“What?”

“When ye bring six men with ye and go after a man’s sister, that makes ye a coward.”

Berling’s face reddened. “Then why are you here, George?” he snapped.

The earl’s cousin pulled a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Arran. “Because I’m inclined to make an innocent man disappear. Unless Glengask would care to explain some things to me and take the ball himself.”

Charlotte gasped, putting a hand to her chest. Ranulf flinched a heartbeat later, and she realized he hadn’t known she was there behind him. Beside her Owen lifted the blunderbuss. Terrible things were about to happen. Terrible, irreversible things. Taking a shaking breath, she held out her hands. “Rowena, come over here,” she called in her most soothing voice.

“Nae,” Winnie sobbed, clinging to her brother.

“Rowena, do as Charlotte says,” Ranulf echoed. “I’ll nae have one of these
amadan
shooting ye by accident.”

Crying, the girl fled the corner of the park. Charlotte wrapped her arms around Winnie, angling them so that while she could see what transpired, Rowena wouldn’t be able to do so.

“Now,” Ranulf said, taking a slow step closer to the armed Gerdens-Dailey. “What do ye want explained, George?”

The earl’s cousin kept his weapon and gaze aimed at Arran. “I’ve a suspicion ye know what happened to my father, Glengask. And I’d like to know what possessed ye to take him from me two days after ye lost yer own.”

“I didnae
lose
my father,” Ranulf retorted, emotion touching his voice for the first time. “Yer
athair
and yer
athair
”—and he pointed at Berling—“and yer uncle Wallace murdered him.”

“The way I heard it,” Gerdens-Dailey returned, “’twas the Campbells’ doing.”

Now Charles Calder frowned. “Never. Pigheaded as the MacLawrys are, the Campbell would never agree to killing Seann Monadh. They were friends, once.”

Ranulf took another step forward, the dogs still keeping pace with him. “It wasnae the Campbells. After we found my father, I tracked riders back to Sholbray Manor.”

“That’s nae—”

“And I hid in the rain beneath the drawing room window and I heard yer father and Wallace boasting about how they and Berling murdered my father. I heard them say it, and I saw their faces.” Anger clipped his voice. Charlotte could hear it clearly, just as she could hear the truth in his words. She kept her attention on him; if, when, he moved, she would drag Rowena to safety because that was what he would be worried about. Just as she was terrified for him now.

“That’s not the end of the story, though, is it?” Gerdens-Dailey said, turning his head to look at Ranulf.

“That’s all I mean to say in front of these cowards. If ye want more, ye’ll put that away and stand where we can speak, two men together.”

“Ha,” Berling bit out. “If you think any of—”

“Shut yer mouth, Donald,” his cousin interrupted, and pocketed his pistol.

“Arran, call the dogs,” Ranulf ordered.

His face white and tense, Arran did as he said. Slowly, clearly reluctant and their tails down, the dogs left Ranulf’s side and slunk over to stand beside his brother. While Charlotte held her breath, Ranulf and George Gerdens-Dailey approached each other, stopping beside an old, leaning elm tree.

“What are they doing?” Winnie whispered, twisting her head to look.

“They’re talking.” She had no idea whether it was the wisest course of action or not—despite the fact, or because of the fact, that this was precisely what she’d urged him to do.

“But they hate each other.”

Charlotte nodded. “Very likely. But I think they also have a great deal in common.”

“When they surrounded us, I thought … I thought they were going to murder Arran. And then—I don’t know what they would have done to me.”

Hugging the younger lady, Charlotte kept her gaze on the two men. “All you need to remember is that you and Arran and Ranulf are all well. With all of us here, nothing’s going to happen now.”

“But what about tomorrow? What if they go to the Lansfield ball tomorrow?” She shuddered. “What if one of them asks me to dance?”

“You will tell them no,” she returned, wishing mightily that she could hear what the two men were saying.

She understood why Gerdens-Dailey wanted to know for once and certain what had happened to his father, just as Ranulf had wanted to know. But if Ranulf confessed to two murders, especially to the son of one of his victims, he could well find himself in prison. Even hanged, if the English courts could be influenced to rid the Highlands of its most stubborn, troublesome resident.

After what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes, Gerdens-Dailey gave a stiff nod and turned away. “We’re finished here,” he stated.

Berling scowled. “But—”

The earl’s cousin strode forward and grabbed the earl by the throat. “We two need to have a talk, ourselves,” he growled, “about why yer father lied to me.” He shoved, and Berling stumbled backward, nearly falling to the street.

“I don’t—”

“Glengask, ye’d best be there, or I’ll come looking fer ye,” Gerdens-Dailey interrupted his cousin again.

“I’ll be there. But not because ye’ll come looking fer me.”

With a nod, George Gerdens-Dailey led the way to a standing group of horses. In less than a minute they’d ridden around a corner and out of sight. Only then did Charlotte begin breathing again, her knees feeling wobbly.

“Dogs, off. Come,” Ranulf said, slapping his thigh. Immediately the hounds’ tails went up, and they romped over to him again.

Arran followed a few steps behind. “Where is it ye’re supposed to be, precisely?” he asked, then pulled his older brother into a hard embrace. “And thank ye. That was aboot to get unpleasant.”

Ranulf hugged him back, then caught up Rowena. “All’s well,
piuthar.
Dunnae fret.”

“Charlotte said everything would be fine.”

Looking over his sister’s head, Ranulf gave her a slow, delicious smile that warmed her to her toes. Then he took his sister’s hand, offered her his arm, and turned back for the house. “Owen. Put that damned blunderbuss away, will ye?”

“What the devil happened?” the footman demanded, lowering his weapon.

“I’d like to know that, too, Ranulf,” Arran commented. “Where are ye to meet that man? If it’s a duel, I’ll tie ye to a damned chair.”

“It’s nae a duel,” Ranulf retorted, tightening his arm to bring Charlotte closer against his side. “I told him that I’d show him where his father’s buried.”

“Ran,” Charlotte whispered.

He shrugged. “It’s time fer it,
leannan.
All the wrong George Gerdens-Dailey did us is because the old Lord Berling told him ’twas the Campbells killed my father, and that the MacLawrys went after the Gerdenses fer the hell of it.” Deep blue eyes met hers. “Peace, all done with a few words. Imagine that.”

She grinned. “And after I told you that bashing was acceptable.”

“I will keep that in mind, lass.”

Chapter Seventeen

Owen looked Ranulf up and down as he descended the stairs to the foyer. “I thought ye just settled things down. Are ye certain ye want to stir them up again?”

Adjusting his silver-plated sporran edged in rabbit fur, Ranulf lifted an eyebrow. “Ginger nearly fainted,” he commented. “But as I happen to be a Scot, I mean to dress like one.”

“And I cannae have my brother making me look like a Sasannach fop,” Arran took up from the landing. Like Ranulf, he’d donned a dark jacket, though Arran’s was gray rather than his brother’s black. And both men had donned kilts bearing the MacLawry tartan of black and gray and red.

“Ye bring a tear to my old eyes,” Owen stated. “Right proper Highland princes, ye are.”

“Don’t let the English hear ye saying that, or we’re likely to begin another war,” Ranulf noted dryly.

Tonight he felt … exhilarated, as if a weight he’d been carrying for a decade had been lifted. It had, in a sense; they weren’t friendly, by any means, but at least Gerdens-Dailey had agreed that they were even. A death for a death. Horrific, perhaps, but it was what their kind was accustomed to. And unless Berling could somehow convince his cousin that it had indeed been the Campbells who’d murdered Seann Monadh, the Gerdenses would keep their distance.

With the Gerdenses’ influence, the Campbells might, as well. At the least the old Campbell had been surprisingly … uninterested in stirring up old rivalries. As Charles Calder had said, though, the Campbell and Robert MacLawry had once been friends. That left the Daileys, but he much preferred the idea of facing one problem rather than three.

“Ye’re smiling, ye know,” Arran pointed out as they climbed into the coach. “I do hope ye’re aware that neither of us was invited to the grand dinner at the Lansfields’ tonight.”