The Lady Most Willing . . . (2 page)

Chapter 2

C
atriona Burns was a practical girl. One had to be, living as she did in the Highlands
of Scotland. When it was December the seventeenth, and the sun rose for barely six
hours per day, and the temperature hovered somewhere between freezing and dead, one
had to be prepared for anything.

But not
this
.

It was two in the miserable morning, she’d lost feeling in at least eight of her toes,
and she was standing outside in three inches of snow. With an earl. And a French comte.
And a
duke
. Who’d been kidnapped.

“Taran Ferguson, you insufferable miscreant,” she practically yelled. “What do you
think you are
doing
?”

“Aye, well, y’see . . .” He scratched his head, glanced at the carriage as if it might
offer advice, and then shrugged.

“You’re drunk,” she accused.

His mouth twisted so far to the right it seemed to turn his head. “Just a wee bit.”

“You kidnapped the Duke of Bretton!”

“Well now, that was a mistake . . .” He frowned, turning to his loyal retainers. “How
did
we end up with him?”

“Indeed,” bit off the duke. Normally speaking, Catriona would not have found him terribly
fearsome. He was a rather good-looking fellow, with thick, dark hair, and deep-set
eyes, but there was nothing wild or untamed about him.

That said, when the Duke of Bretton speared Taran Ferguson with a furious stare, even
Catriona took a step back.

“What were you doing in the carriage?” Taran demanded.

“It was
my carriage
!” roared the duke.

There was a moment of silence—well, except for the French comte, who wouldn’t stop
laughing—and then Taran finally said, “Oh.”

“Who,” the duke demanded, “are you?”

“Taran Ferguson. I do apologize for the error.” He motioned toward Lady Cecily, then
waved his hand past both Chisholm sisters. “We only meant to snatch the women.”

Marilla Chisholm let out a delicate cry of distress, leading Catriona to let out an
indelicate grunt of annoyance. She’d known Marilla for every one of her twenty-one
years, and there was no way she was the least bit distressed. She’d been trapped in
a carriage with a duke, only to be deposited at the feet of two other titled gentlemen.

Please. This was Marilla’s wildest dream come true, and then inflicted upon the rest
of them. Catriona looked over at Marilla’s older sister, Fiona, but whatever she was
thinking, it was well hidden behind her spectacles.

“Bret,” said one of the men—the stiff and serious one who had already apologized six
times.

The duke’s head snapped around, and Catriona saw his eyes widen. “Oakley?” he asked,
sounding well and truly shocked.

Lord Oakley jerked his head toward Taran and said, “He’s our uncle.”

“
Our?
” the duke echoed.

Lord Rocheforte—or was it Mr. Rocheforte? Catriona didn’t know, he was
French
, for heaven’s sake, for all that he sounded British. Whoever he was, he clearly saw
no gravity in the situation, for he just grinned and held up his hand. “Hallo, Bret,”
he said in a jolly voice.

“Good God,” the duke swore. “You too?”

Catriona looked back and forth between the trio of men. They had that air about them—five
hundred years of breeding and a membership to White’s. One didn’t have to venture
far beyond the Highlands of Scotland to know that once one reached a certain social
level, everyone knew everyone. These three had probably shared a room at Eton.

“Didn’t realize you were in Scotland,” Mr. Lord Rocheforte said to the duke.

The duke cursed under his breath, following that up with: “Forgot the two of you were
related.”

“It still quite frequently comes as a shock to me, too,” Lord Oakley said in a dry
voice. Then he cleared his throat and added, “I must apologize on behalf of my uncle.”
He jerked his head furiously toward Taran. “Apparently, he—”

“I can speak for myself,” Taran cut in.

“No,” Lord Oakley said, “you cannot.”

“Don’t you speak to me like that, boy!”

Oakley turned to Taran with a fury that even outstripped the duke’s. “Your judgment—”

“He was asleep in the carriage,” Catriona blurted out, jumping into the fray. The
men went silent for long enough to stare at her, so she quickly added, “When you and
your men threw us inside. His Grace was already there, asleep.”

“Did he wake up?” Mr. Lord Rocheforte murmured.

Catriona blinked, not sure if she was meant to actually answer. But she had a feeling
that if she did not maintain control of the conversation, the other three men would
come to blows, so she said, “Not right away.”

“It was right easy,” Taran boasted. “We just went in, snatched them, and left. No
one even put up a fuss.”

Lord Oakley let out a long, agonized breath. “How is that possible? Surely your parents
. . .”

Fiona Chisholm cleared her throat. “I think the guests thought it was all part of
the entertainment.”

Rocheforte started laughing again.

“How can you find this funny?” Lord Oakley demanded.

“How can you not?” Rocheforte sputtered.

“I feel faint,” Marilla twittered.

“You do not,” Catriona snapped. Because really, the whole thing was bad enough without
Marilla’s nonsense.

Marilla gasped in outrage, and Catriona had no doubt that she would have hissed something
monstrously insulting if they had not an audience of unmarried gentlemen.

“Might we go inside?” the Duke of Bretton asked, each syllable icy sharp.

“Of course,” Lord Oakley replied quickly. “Come in, everyone. We will get this sorted
out and have everyone
back on their way home
”—he glared at his uncle at that—“posthaste.”

“We can’t go home,” Catriona said.

“What do you mean?”

“The roads are impassable.”

Lord Oakley stared at her.

“It’s a miracle we even made it here,” she told him. “We certainly cannot return tonight.
There is no moon, and”—she looked up at the sky—“it’s going to snow again.”

“How do you know?” Lord Oakley asked, with perhaps more than a touch of desperation.

She tried not to stare at him as if he were an idiot, she really did, but his white-blond
hair was practically glowing in the moonlight, and with his mouth still open in horror,
he looked like a traumatized owl. “I have lived here my entire life,” she finally
said. “I know when it’s going to snow.”

His reply was something that should never be uttered in front of a gently born female,
but given the circumstances, Catriona opted to take no offense.

“Let’s get inside,” he muttered, and after a moment of confusion, they all piled into
the castle.

Catriona had been to Finovair Castle, of course; Taran Ferguson and his crumbling
abode was the Burnses’ third-closest neighbor. But she’d never been so late at night,
after most of the fires had been allowed to die down. It was so cold the air had teeth,
and none of the young ladies was wearing a coat or pelisse. Catriona’s gown had been
sensibly tailored with long sleeves, as had Fiona’s, but Lady Cecily’s powder blue
confection had little cap sleeves, and Marilla’s practically bared her shoulders.

“There’s a fire in the drawing room,” Lord Oakley said, hurrying everyone along. It
was difficult to believe that he was related to Taran; they looked nothing alike,
and as they passed the candlelit sconces, Catriona could see that Lord Oakley’s features
were uncommonly stern and severe.

As opposed to Mr. Lord Rocheforte, who had one of those faces that looked as if it
didn’t know how
not
to smile. He was chuckling as they made their way through the cavernous great hall,
although Catriona did hear him say to the duke, “Oh, come now, Bret, surely you see
the humor in this.”

Catriona pricked up her ears, but she didn’t hear “Bret’s” response. She didn’t dare
steal a glance at the duke, not when they were all in such close proximity. There
was something about him that made her feel uneasy, and it wasn’t just the fact that
he was certainly the highest-ranking individual to whom she had ever been introduced.

Except she
hadn’t
been introduced to him. She’d only watched him from across the Maycott ballroom,
as had the rest of the local peons. The Earl of Maycott was one of the richest men
in England, and heaven only knew why he had wanted his own Scottish castle, but want
it he had, badly enough to spend a fortune restoring Bellemere to a level of magnificence
that Catriona was fairly certain it had never enjoyed, even when it was in its supposed
glory.

Once the work was completed, the Maycotts had decided to hold a ball, inviting a few
of their London friends but, for the most part, the local gentry. Only so that their
first annual Icicle Ball would be a crush.

Or at least that was what the local gossips said. And while Catriona knew better than
to believe everything she heard, she
always
listened.

The Chisholm daughters had been brought to meet the duke, of course. They were heiresses,
quite possibly the only heiresses this corner of Scotland had ever seen, and they’d
each had a season in London. But not Catriona. Her father was a local squire, and
her mother was the daughter of a local squire, and as Catriona fully expected one
day to marry a local squire, she didn’t see much sense in begging an introduction
to the visiting aristocracy.

Until
.

Catriona still wasn’t sure how she had come to be snatched up along with Lady Cecily
and the Chisholm daughters, but she’d been the first to be tossed into the carriage.
She’d landed squarely atop the duke, who responded first with a snore, and then with
a frisky hand to her bottom.

Then he’d called her Delilah and started nuzzling her neck!

She’d jumped away before she could dwell upon the fact that it all felt rather nice,
and then the duke had fallen back asleep.

Someone, Catriona had decided acerbically, had got into the Maycotts’ good brandy.

Catriona had only a minute alone with the sleeping duke before the other three ladies
were tossed into the carriage, and then he
had
woken up. She shuddered to think how much brandy he’d have had to drink to sleep
through
that
. Marilla was shrieking, Lady Cecily was banging on the ceiling with her fist, and
Fiona was yelling at Marilla, trying to get her to shut up.

Sisters the Chisholm girls might be, but there had never been any love lost there.

The duke had tried to get everyone to be quiet, but even he wasn’t able to break through
the din until he bellowed, “Silence!”

It was at that moment that Catriona realized that the other ladies had not yet noticed
he was in the carriage. Lady Cecily’s jaw dropped so fast Catriona was surprised it
stayed hinged. And Marilla—good Lord, but Catriona had never liked Marilla—she had
been immediately tossed onto his lap by a nonexistent bump in the road.

He had not, Catriona had noticed with some satisfaction, responded by squeezing
her
bottom.

She wasn’t certain how long they’d been trapped in the swiftly moving carriage. Ninety
minutes at least, perhaps two hours. Long enough for the duke to announce that no
one was to utter a sound until they arrived at their godforsaken destination. Then
he went back to sleep.

Or if not sleep, then a crackingly good imitation of it. Even Marilla had not dared
to disturb him.

But whatever good sense Marilla possessed had fled when she’d stepped out of the carriage,
because now she was chattering to the duke like an outraged magpie, clutching his
arm—his arm!—as she went on about “shocking” this and “insupportable” that.

The duke gave a little tug, but Marilla had no intention of releasing her prey, and
he gave up. Catriona could only think that he’d decided the heat of her hand was worth
the annoyance.

Catriona couldn’t fault him for that.
She’d
have cuddled up to Marilla just then if it meant raising her temperature a few degrees.
The only people who didn’t seem to be shivering madly were Taran’s two nephews, who,
it had to be said, were almost as pleasing to the eye as the duke, and not the sort
of men one would think would need to have women snatched from a party.

Then again, Taran Ferguson was as eccentric as the summer day was long. And the last
time she’d seen him he’d been going on about the fate of Finovair after he was dead
and in the ground, so she supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised that he’d go to
such lengths to secure brides for his nephews.

Lord Oakley led the entire crowd into a small sitting room off the great hall. It
was shabby but clean, just like most of Finovair, and most importantly, there was
a fire in the grate. Everyone rushed forward, desperate to warm his limbs.

“We’ll need blankets,” Oakley directed.

“Got some in that trunk,” Taran replied, jerking his head toward an ancient chest
near the wall. His nephews went to retrieve them, and soon they were passing the blankets
along like a chain until everyone had one draped across his shoulders. The wool was
rough and scratchy, and Catriona wouldn’t have been surprised if a flotilla of moths
had come spewing forth, but she didn’t care. She would have donned a hair shirt for
warmth at that point.

“Once again,” Lord Oakley said to the ladies, “I must apologize on behalf of my uncle.
I can’t even begin to imagine what he might have been thinking—”

“You
know
what I was thinking,” Taran cut in. “Robin’s dragging his feet, pussyfooting around—”

“
Uncle
,” Oakley said warningly.

“As no one is going anywhere tonight,” Mr. Rocheforte said, “we might as well get
some sleep.”

“Oh, but we must all be introduced,” Marilla said grandly.

“Of course,” Taran said, with great enthusiasm. “Where are my manners?”