Rogue with a Brogue (10 page)

By the time he arrived back at Gilden House it was well past three, and he half expected Ranulf to be waiting on the front drive to bellow at him for being contrary. As frustrated as he felt after naught but a kiss with Mary when he'd been fantasizing about a great deal more, a brawl might well be just the thing. Or it might knock some sense into his skull so he could forget the lass before something happened that they would all regret.

Instead of Ranulf, however, the familiar face waiting for him in the foyer belonged to his sister, Rowena. “There you are,” she said with a merry smile, still burying her lovely Highlands brogue beneath the passing fair southern England accent she'd picked up from the Hanover sisters.

“Didnae Owen tell ye I was oot at luncheon?” he returned, kissing her on the cheek and using every ounce of willpower he possessed not to look into the neighboring room for Jane Hanover. “What brings ye here, Winnie?”

“You do.” She hugged his arm, pulling him into the morning room.

Arran held his breath until he could verify that she hadn't brought anyone else with her. When she seated herself primly on the couch, he settled down beside her. Before she'd fled Glengask for a London Season, the youngest MacLawry sibling had confided in him frequently. Even with the chaos of the past weeks, he'd missed that.

“Well, here I am,” he drawled. “What's in yer heart,
piuthar
?”

Her shoulders rose and fell with the deep breath she took. “Firstly, why don't you like Jane? She adores you, and if you married her, we would be sisters.”

“Ye're supposed to ease yer way into a question like that, ye know,” he said with a short smile. “A bit of ‘how was yer day' and ‘isnae the weather fine today' first.”

She grimaced. “Not with you, I'm not. Answer the question.”

“As ye wish, then. I
do
like Jane Hanover. She seems a fine, friendly lass, and she talked her family into taking ye in when ye ran from Glengask and appeared on their doorstep.”

“That was Charlotte, actually, but go on.”

Had it been? Ranulf's betrothed? That was interesting. “I thought ye didnae know Charlotte before ye arrived.”

“I didn't. I never corresponded with her. But she was so nice, and then when Ran burst in to drag me home she walked right up to him, put her hands on her hips, and told him no.”

“And they fell in love because she argued with him?”

“I think that's part of it,” she returned, “but you'd have to ask Ranulf. I'm talking about you and Jane, though.”

“Lass, completely aside from clan politics ye ken I cannae marry yer friend just because it'd be fun fer ye to call her sister, I hope. Ye'll have Charlotte fer that.”

Her face fell. “But she's pretty!”

“Aye, she is. She's also nae but eighteen.”

“I'm nae but eighteen. Ranulf wants me to marry stupid Lachlan, so eighteen is nae—not—too young.”

So Lachlan had in a few short weeks gone from being her knight in shining armor to being stupid. He was going to have to tell Ranulf about that—if they were still speaking. But perhaps Lachlan MacTier could be of some help, after all.

“Winnie, do ye recall how Lachlan reacted to ye tagging aboot after him everywhere? And sighing and making doe eyes?”

“I did not—”

“He ran the other way as fast as his wee legs would carry him.”

“Lachlan does not have wee legs. He's as tall as you are, Arran.”

Arran grinned. “So ye do still like him.”

Sending him an annoyed look, she rose to pace from the couch to the fireplace and back again, while he wished someone could have this same chat with him about Mary and remind him why he needed to stop tempting fate as he was. That would entail telling someone about her, though, and he knew better than that.

“I don't like Lachlan,” Rowena retorted belatedly. “He hasn't even bothered to write me a letter since I left the Highlands. I was merely stating the fact that he was tall.”

She paused at the mantel to run her finger along the spine of a porcelain dog there. Arran didn't know where it had come from—but then Ranulf had purchased the house fully furnished so he wouldn't have to go to the trouble of searching out English knickknacks. Personally Arran would rather have looked at bare walls and empty shelves, but then he wasn't trying to become a Sasannach.

“Ye see my point, though,” he continued. “Jane's been chasing me like I'm the last rabbit in winter. She's too young, too agreeable, and too naïve. And I think ye know we'd both be miserable together, even if Ranulf hadnae decided we need the Stewarts aboot to keep his Charlotte safe.”

She sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. It still would have been fun.”

“Nae fer me. Or fer her, after she realized I'm nae as nice as she thinks.” As he spoke, it was another young lady's face who entered his thoughts, and it wasn't that of his nearly betrothed. He barely knew Mary. And if a MacLawry ever married a Campbell, the earth would crack open and swallow the Highlands. That was the legend, anyway.

He shook himself out of the ridiculous daydream. Of course his mind went to making a match with Mary, because it was so absurd. Nothing meant for rational thought, anyway, and far outside the future being laid out for him. “Ye said ‘firstly.' Was there someaught else, then?”

“You and Ran are arguing. I don't like that, so stop it—whatever it is.”

“It's nae that simple,
piuthar
. Ye can pretend nae to be Scottish, but I cannae. I dunnae want to be a Sasannach. And Ranulf … Since when do we consider Sasannach opinions before we do someaught? Since when do we make alliances with clans we've had nae to do with for three hundred years just because now they bolster our numbers in Mayfair?”

“Times are changing, Arr—”

“Aye, they are,” he interrupted, warming to the argument. “Because Ranulf and ye are changing them! The only difference between now and six weeks ago is that ye left Glengask, Winnie, and he followed ye.”

His younger sister stared at him. Then, putting her hands on her hips, she stalked up to him. “So you'd rather we were still all alone in the Highlands without any allies but those who owe us loyalty because their great-great-great-grandfathers bent a knee to ours? Ye'd rather we didnae have any friends or allies outside the village of An Soadh? Perhaps Maggie at the bakery there could show Ran how to manage English politics.”

“Winnie, ye—”

“Perhaps ye'd rather have had Lord Berling shoot ye last week when he aimed his pistol at your head, but I'm glad Ran could arrange a truce. Times
are
changing, Arran. And because Ran's in London and nae far away in the mountains, he can see to it that we profit rather than perish. Here and back home.”

She stood there, breathing hard and glaring at him, tears rising in her pretty, dark gray eyes. “Ye've made yer point,” he snapped. Being lectured to by a lass nine years his junior wasn't something he'd ever tolerated before. Some things were definitely changing, then.

But other things weren't changing. Ranulf could dine with English fops, but
he
wasn't permitted even to dance with a Campbell lass. Not even when their meeting had been completely by accident. And he couldn't explain any of that to Winnie.

Unless he could. For a long moment he gazed back at her. “What if I told ye someaught?” he went on in a calmer voice. “Could I trust ye with it?”

“Of course you can. You're my brother.” She must have said her piece and done, because her brogue had disappeared again. A damned shame, that.

She would likely keep her word to him, then, whatever he told her. But saying anything aloud to anyone felt like he was putting voice to something that was too nebulous to be touched. If it became a real, solid
thing,
it might well shatter and break—like a piece of blown glass cooled too quickly.

And really, he'd only seen Mary Campbell—Saint Bridget, was it four times now?—and he wasn't certain he had anything to confess, anyway. Burdening his sister with that kind of knowledge for no good reason wouldn't be fair to either of them. “Another time,” he said aloud, pushing to his feet.

“Are you certain? Jane didn't want me to say anything, but Deirdre Stewart likes you, you know. She told me you're very handsome, and have a Highlands way about you.”

“What the devil does that even mean? I'm a Highlander. Of course I act like one.” Then again, Deirdre had Highlands blood, but he damned well didn't see it in her. Mary Campbell, now … Wherever she'd been raised, she was a Highlander.

“I don't know,” his sister returned. “Do you want me to ask her?”

“Nae. Now. Are ye expected back at Hanover House, or do ye care to try me at billiards?”

Rowena flashed her customary charming grin. “I have time for a game, and then you can see me back to the Hanovers after I thrash you.”

He followed her to the door, wishing all his troubles and concerns could be resolved as easily as his sister's frown. “So ye say. I have my doubts.”

*   *   *

With a muffled curse Ranulf ducked backward into his office and slipped behind the half-open door, where he stood silent and unbreathing until his siblings had passed by and gone upstairs. He wasn't accustomed to sneaking or snooping about, and he could admit that he didn't do it well. But his family was supposed to come to him with their troubles. That was the way it had always been. He wasn't supposed to have to track them down and eavesdrop to discover what bothered them.

If he'd had any doubts that Rowena was becoming a keen-sighted young lady, her fine argument in favor of learning more about the English had answered them. Now he only needed to worry that she would use the same logic of changing times against him and announce she'd found a Sasannach lordling she wanted to wed.

Perhaps ordering Lachlan MacTier, Lord Gray, to remain at Glengask as Bear's lieutenant had been a mistake. But the viscount's lack of attention had been one of the reasons Rowena had decided she required a proper English Season in London. And he'd ultimately agreed to it because his sister did need to view the people her own clan had spent so long fighting against. And of course because he'd met Charlotte.

The idea had been that distance would make Rowena's heart grow fonder—after all, she'd spent the total of her first seventeen years telling all and sundry that she meant to marry Lachlan, until she'd abruptly realized that she was the only one doing the pursuing. For Lucifer's sake, he hoped this was one problem that would settle itself.

It was Arran who worried him more at the moment. Something was afoot, and he didn't like not knowing what it was. Low as he'd stooped to convince Rowena to come and chat with the middle MacLawry brother, and as little as Arran had said, it did mean something that he wouldn't confide even in his sister. Whatever it was that troubled him, it was serious.

And whatever did bother him, he couldn't continue going about London without telling anyone his destination. Truce or not, Ranulf didn't trust the Campbells or the Dailys or the Gerdenses any further than he could throw one of them. Arran could handle himself, and well, but the MacLawrys and their allies were badly outnumbered here. Arran certainly knew that, and yet he continued to vanish on a regular basis.

Was he trying to stir up trouble? That made no sense, unless he meant to escape a match with Deirdre Stewart by setting the MacLawrys and Campbells after each other again. They all knew that only a fool would ally himself with a clan in the middle of a centuries-long feud—and the Stewart was no fool. But that made no sense. Yes, Arran detested the Campbells, but he was also fairly logical. They needed peace, and they could certainly make good use of the Stewarts, both for their trade connections and to keep all the damned Campbells from attempting something unwise now that it looked like the MacLawrys would be spending more time in London.

The last resort would be to send Arran back to Glengask for his own safety, and make him wait there until Deirdre Stewart could be delivered. Before any banishment happened and caused a rift even Rowena couldn't heal, he wanted—needed—more information. And as soon as possible, before one or the other of them said something they couldn't forgive.

*   *   *

“Crawford, you know you look ridiculous,” Mary commented, turning her mare, Alba, in a tight circle around the maid. “You can't think to escort me on foot.”

“I will be close by, at least,” the maid returned. “Davis will escort you.” She gestured at the groom, a few feet behind on one of the numerous horses Mary's father kept in his London stable.

“Davis always escorts me when I go riding. I don't even know why you're here.”

She did know, of course. All the previous times she'd gone for a morning ride in Hyde Park, she hadn't yet made the acquaintance of Lord Arran MacLawry. Now she had, and suddenly Crawford needed to be present. And Mary tolerated it, because at least the maid hadn't tattled about her luncheon with him.

“Just enjoy your morning, my lady. I'll be close by.”

Before Mary could decide whether it was even worth going out this morning with the maid traipsing after her, she spied Elizabeth Bell and her older sister, Annabeth. “Liz,” she called, waving, and urged Alba down the path.

“Good morning, Mary. Is that Crawford?”

Mary sighed. “Yes, she detests horses, but she's decided to follow me, anyway.”

“You could just send her away, you know.”

“Yes, but then she gives me a look like a little lost puppy. And she means well.” She reined in to trot beside them.

The park was crowded this morning, likely because the weather was so fine. Within ten minutes her cheeks felt tired from smiling greetings at all her friends and acquaintances, from uttering admiring pleasantries to all the young bucks cantering about to show off their horsemanship and sterling riding attire. It was like a great parade, where each person knew their role and played it each and every time the weather was agreeable enough for the cavalcade.