The Highland Countess (12 page)

Her face lit up with affection as Rory came tripping into the room, the invitation card behind his back.

“I was talking to Lord Freemantle,” he began, “and he said I should read books on, oh, all sorts of things like steamships and horses.”

“Anything that man says is bound to be wrong,” snapped Morag. “You will learn enough hard facts later in your life without addling your brains at this early age.”

Rory sighed. He was losing his touch. He should simply have asked her for the books without mentioning Lord Freemantle’s name. He changed his tactics.

“Look, mama. I have a spot on my forehead.”

“Only a little one, my love. You eat too many sugar plums.”

“I think it is a lack of fresh air, mama. I miss the country so much,” said Rory who did not miss it in the slightest and found the crowded streets of the city vastly more entertaining.

“Do you, my son?” asked Morag, feeling a sudden stab of conscience. “We cannot return to Perth, you know, until the mystery of your assailant is solved. My steward is investigating the matter. Perhaps we could take a drive this afternoon.”

Rory whipped out the breakfast invitation. “You have
this
, mama. My name is on the invitation also and only see, it says in the corner that there are to be fireworks. Only think, mama. Fireworks!”

“Very well,” said Morag. “Run along and tell Miss Simpson she is to accompany us and then send a footman round to the stables with a message. I did accept the Montclairs’ invitation but I did not mean to go since I feel so tired today. But if your heart is set on it…?”

“Oh,
yes
.”

“Then tell Miss Simpson that we leave in an hour.”

Rory skipped up the stairs to the governess’s room and crashed in without knocking. Miss Simpson had been in the act of finishing her catalogue of Rory’s iniquities. She blushed and put her large hands quickly over the letter. Rory flicked a glance at the paper on her desk and carefully looked away as he delivered his message. So what was old Simpers up to? Whatever was in the letter, she would not have time to finish it now. And wherever she hid it, Rory would find it.

Sir Eric and Lady Felicity Montclair held the breakfast at their
cottage ornée
in Surrey. The cottage was in fact a large sprawling villa, all its rooms being designed in the same manner, flesh-colored stucco and gold, and curtains of crimson and white silk. The effect was rather florid and grandiose. The grounds, however, were delightful with many pleasant walks and arbors. Tables for the guests had been set out on the smooth lawns. It was still quite windy and the light pastel muslins of the ladies fluttered across the grass like so many flowers.

Henrietta Sampson walked by the side of Lord Toby Freemantle and gracefully accepted felicitations on her forthcoming marriage. After some time, it downed on her that her tall companion was emanating an atmosphere of unease. Henrietta remembered her comments on the Countess of Murr at Almack’s the night before and wondered if that had offended her fiancé. Men were so strange! They said the most frightful things about each other but let only one miss pass a derogatory remark about another female and she was labeled a shrew. Henrietta resolved to be extremely pleasant to the young Countess of Murr should their paths cross again.

Unfortunately this good resolution lasted only as long as her first glimpse of Morag. Henrietta was wearing a new poplin tunic gown in a flattering straw color. She felt it became her well. But that wretched countess was also wearing a tunic gown in the same color and it set off her creamy skin and flaming hair to perfection. Henrietta felt pale and dowdy by comparison.

Lord Toby’s rather cold, arrogant face was hardly to be expected to delight the eyes of a child. But Rory brightened immediately at the sight of his new hero and he tugged Morag impatiently toward Henrietta and Lord Toby.

Morag had been talking to Miss Simpson and had allowed Rory to tug her along. She realized with a start that Lord Toby was bowing before her while the lady at his side was raking her eyes up and down Morag’s dress with a singularly unpleasant stare.

Lord Toby felt that to offer Morag an apology in front of his fiancée would not be a good idea at all. He was uncomfortably aware that his pulses were racing with a strange, heady excitement. Morag made him a stiff little curtsy and said, “Come, Rory,” and without waiting to see whether he followed her or not, walked away. Just then, Henrietta’s mother, Mrs. Lydia Sampson, came fluttering up. She was dressed in shades of gray and lilac and looked like a wispy insubstantial ghost. “Henrietta,” she whispered. It was not a secret she had to impart. Mrs. Sampson always whispered. “The hem of my gown has come loose. You are so clever with a needle, my dear. Pray walk with me into the house and assist me.”

Henrietta assented with bad grace. One of her favorite roles was that of Dutiful Daughter and she felt obliged to play it one more time.

“I shall return quite soon,” she said, squeezing Lord Toby’s arm. “Oh, here is that wretched child again.”

“Go along with you, Miss Sampson,” said Lord Toby, wondering why he found it so hard to call her by her first name. “I am well able to deal with a child.”

As soon as Henrietta had left with her mother, Rory, who had been hanging about hopefully a little way away, came scampering up.

“Well, young man,” said Lord Toby severely. “Who are you blackmailing today?”

“No one as yet,” replied Rory calmly. “My mother’s suitors have not approached me yet.”

“What a horrible brat you are! Has it never dawned on you that people might help you out of sheer good nature?”

“No,” said Rory simply. “Good nature is not fashionable. I am told ‘It will never
do
.’”

“You must not follow the sillier dictates of society or you will become quite inhuman. Have you heard the story of the famous dandy who was walking along the riverbank with his lady friend. No? Well, there was a man drowning in the river and the lady knew the dandy to be a powerful swimmer. ‘Pray, sir,’ she cried. ‘Why do you not rescue that poor gentleman.’ Whereupon the dandy raised his quizzing glass and surveyed the drowning man and said in accents of horror, ‘But, my dear young lady, we have not been introduced.’”

Rory laughed gleefully. “Yes,” commented Lord Toby dryly, “I thought that might amuse you. Where did you come by these odd blackmailing tactics, my soulless dwarf. It’s not as if anyone ever blackmailed you.”

“Oh, yes they did,” said Rory, falling into step beside him. “In Perthshire, you know, I used to slip out of the castle at night and go to the village to join the boys in their games. But they used to laugh at me because I was in petticoats. I asked them when would they stop teasing me and let me join in their games, and they said, ‘Why, when you give us something to keep us quiet.’ I didn’t have any money but I used to steal biscuits and sugar plums and take them with me and as long as I had something to give them, they would let me play with them for a little. You must not tell my mother, though. I trust you are a man of honor?”

“Word of a Freemantle,” said Toby, looking down at the boy curiously. “I don’t know what else you could expect,” said Toby after a pause. “The village children knew you were rich and an earl. They probably had little themselves. There must have been boys of your own station in life to play with.”

“No,” said Rory. “I mean, there were, but mama thought them too rough.”

“And what of sports, hunting and fishing?”

“I am considered too delicate.”

“But surely you had some friend among the servants. At your age, I followed one of my father’s grooms about like a dog.”

A shadow crossed Rory’s usually calm face. “Hamish!” he said bitterly. “He hates me. I mean, even before I blackmailed him he didn’t like me. He’s our butler.”

“Hamish, too,” murmured Lord Toby, but Rory had never known anyone to listen to him like this before and would not be checked.

“Hamish looks at me in
such
a way and once when I asked him why he did not call me ‘my lord,’ he gave a very nasty laugh as if he knew something about me that I would not like. Mrs. Tallant—our housekeeper—is the same. There is a lack of respect….”

Lord Toby stopped and swung the boy around to face him. “Now, listen to me, young man, you have gained a very warped view of life. People treat you as you treat them. Try to be kind. Try to talk to Hamish, for example. Respect must be earned.”

“Run along, you tiresome child.” Rory had been staring wonderingly up at Lord Toby, trying to assimilate these new ideas when this grating, female voice cut across his reverie. Henrietta was back. “I said, ‘run along,’” she snapped. “Really, Toby, I don’t know what Lady Murr must be thinking of. Bringing a child along.”

Rory raised his large, limpid eyes to Henrietta’s face and said in his clear soprano, “You are jealous of my mother. She is very beautiful.”

Up till that minute, Lord Toby had had no idea that his Henrietta had a waspish temper. She had always—until last night anyway—been sweet and smiling and docile.

“How dare you?” screamed Henrietta. “As if I would be jealous of a
Scot.
Heathenish savages. They should be exterminated!”

Rory’s eyes flashed hate mixed with malice and then he scampered off. Lord Toby felt quite rigid with shock.

“Hear this,” he said quietly. “You are never to raise your voice in my presence again. That was extremely cruel. You will go to Lady Murr and apologize for your behavior, which was totally unreasonable.”

The wheels and cogs of Henrietta’s mind churned and turned rapidly. She knew she had gone too far. She knew what she must do.

“Oh, Toby,” she sighed. “Of course I shall apologize. I am so much in love with you that it makes me behave badly.”

Lord Toby should have been gratified to hear his beloved’s pretty, docile apology. He should have been angry at Morag for her chilly acceptance. But his thoughts were in confusion and he felt strangely trapped. The pressure of Henrietta’s little hand on his arm began to feel like a manacle.

With all the acute perception of the child, Rory recognized Henrietta’s apology for what it was—a wile to charm Lord Toby.

He felt hurt and restless and when he felt hurt and restless, he craved mischief as an addict will crave his card game or his opium.

After the meal had been served, the guests were invited to view the rooms of the Montclairs’ new cottage. Despite its title of “cottage,” it was large enough to house at least four farmers, their families and their laborers. The guests crowded into the drawing room, which looked exactly the same as the other rooms, with one exception. A newly painted portrait of Lady Montclair hung over the fireplace. In the painting she was dressed in her best purple silk with her ample bosoms well hitched up. A purple turban ornamented her head and her small mouth was fashionably pursed and slightly open.

Lady Montclair stood under her portrait and complacently awaited the expected compliments. She slowly became aware that her guests were staring at it with expressions of shock on their faces. She turned around and looked up. And then fell into a swoon, her husband leaping forward to catch her just in time.

Someone had drawn a balloon from the portrait’s painted mouth and in the balloon, neatly painted in black, one vulgar, shocking four-letter word.

Lord Toby looked across the room. Rory was standing with his little hands folded and a pious expression of shock and bewilderment on his angel face.

“Now I know what makes you tick, young man,” thought Lord Toby with a strange mixture of anger and pity. Anger that the boy could be so cruel, pity for his narrow, overprotected life.

If only Henrietta would release her clutch on his arm for one minute, then he would be free to talk to Morag.

The guests had been treated to a French play and a Tyrolean concert and were once again promenading in the gardens before the start of the proposed ball which was to be held at the conservatory at the back of the house.

Still with Henrietta clamped to his side, Lord Toby walked sedately through the failing romantic light of dusk and wished he could escape. He had quite suddenly taken her in dislike and did not know what to do about it. He could not propose to a girl one day and hate her the next! If only she would leave him for a minute so that he could arrange his thoughts.

“Oh, look at that pretty fountain!” cried Henrietta, leading him toward a shallow basin in the center of which a merman held a spouting dolphin. Lord Toby stopped dutifully and stared at the merman. The dolphin, he noticed idly, spouted water by means of a thin copper pipe passing through its tail and up through its mouth. He frowned. He could have sworn a white hand, glimmering in the dusk, had twitched at the pipe.

The next minute, Henrietta screamed. The water from the dolphin’s mouth, instead of spouting up into the air as usual, was suddenly directed straight at her, soaking her from head to foot in a matter of seconds.

Lord Toby darted off to the other side of the fountain but there was no sign of anyone. A crowd attracted by Henrietta’s screams began to gather. Mrs. Sampson led her weeping daughter off to the house.

And Lord Toby was free.

He went immediately in search of Morag. At first he could not find her anywhere among the guests and so he wandered farther into the gardens and away from the house. Then he saw a faint glimmer of a straw-colored dress over by a clump of larch. She was alone.

The blustery wind had died and the evening was calm and still.

He walked quickly up to her, afraid that she would disappear. He rehearsed all sorts of formal openings to conversation in his mind and ended up by simply saying, “Morag.”

She swung round and looked up at him. She had removed her pretty bergère bonnet and was holding it in her hand by the strings. Her hair glowed like rich mahogany in the fading light.

“I received your apology, Lord Freemantle,” she said hurriedly, looking down. “You have changed,” she added in a low voice.

“Changed? I? In what way?”

“You have become harder. I have watched you in company today. You are often almost rude. It is the fashion, I know, but somehow I thought you would be above the dictates of fashion. There is a want of sympathy…”