The Last Debutante (28 page)

This was no show of friendly interest. This was a message.

Isabella smiled and sipped again from her drink. “Well, I may no’ see you ’ere you go, so I will wish you God’s speed to England, Miss Babcock.”

That was a dismissal if ever Daria had heard one. “Thank you.” Daria forced a smile and put her untouched whisky on the sideboard. “Good evening, Miss Brodie.”

Having delivered her thinly veiled message, Isabella glided away.

Daria walked in the opposite direction, out of the great hall, without looking at anyone. She walked away from Scotland and Campbells and Brodies, and summer kisses and mammoth castles.

She wished she had never seen the naked man in her
grandmother’s cottage. The image would haunt her all her life, for she had fallen in love with Jamie Campbell.

In her rooms, Daria began to pace. She had to leave Dundavie before she lost her mind. She had found such joy these last few days, and tonight, such desperate pain. It hurt everywhere; it pressed against her chest and her head.

She had fallen in love with her captor. She couldn’t imagine anyone else that she might ever love like this. But what did it matter? Her spring in Scotland had ruined her. No one would have her now.

She was alone.

Once, when she was a girl, she and Mamie had seen a bird with a broken wing. It had lain on the lawn, still very much alive, its wing at an odd angle. Other birds flew down and hopped around the poor thing, looking at it, but eventually they all flew off.

“But who will come to save the bird?” Daria had asked Mamie.

“No one,” Mamie had said sadly. “She has a broken wing. She cannot fly, and if she cannot fly, she cannot remain with her family. They’ve gone on without her.”

In despair, Daria collapsed onto the window seat. The full moon cast a milky glow around the castle. Daria glanced up at the moon, wishing that someone, anyone, would come for her.

Then a movement caught her eye. She looked down to the battlements and saw Jamie and Isabella walking arm in arm.

A broken bird. Daria felt like a broken bird.

T
HERE WERE MOMENTS
in a man’s life when he no longer knew the things he thought he knew. Jamie had believed he knew what was best for the Campbells and for himself, but he was no longer certain that was true.

Why could he not seem to be rid of the image of her?
He could see her now, lying on her back, her arms behind her head, her legs crossed at the ankles, smiling up at the sky. He could see her as she’d appeared tonight, in a beautiful silk gown that hugged every feminine curve, her hair loosely knotted at her nape, her skin luminous, her eyes at once sparkling and shrewd.

And yet, here was Isabella, her green eyes fixed on him, shining in the candlelight as they had moved around the dance floor. He had cared very much for Isabella. He still did. But something had changed in his feeling for her. Everything felt a wee bit off.

It wasn’t because she’d cried off; he would have done
the same. It wasn’t that there was anything less appealing about her.

It was him. It was all in him. He could feel a sea swell of change in him. It felt as if his heart were turning over, end to end. Everything he’d thought he’d known was upside down.

The evening was winding down, and the Campbells and Brodies, most now well in their cups after an evening of forced reconciliation, were staggering off to their rooms. That was where Jamie wanted to be—in his rooms, enveloped in silence so he could
think
—but Isabella had led him out of the great hall and outside, up to the old battlements. From here, the view of the glen in which Dundavie sat was spectacular. The full moon cast a glow so bright that Jamie could see cattle grazing next to a stream.

Isabella stood next to him, her head resting lightly on his shoulder. “You’ve not said much this evening,” she said in Gaelic. Jamie kept his gaze on the view below, of the land his family had overseen for two centuries. “I think you are not as happy to see me as I am you.”

“That’s not true,” he said instantly.

She lifted her head and gave him a skeptical smile. He couldn’t escape the fact that she knew him rather well. She rested her head again on his shoulder. “You are a fortunate man, Jamie Campbell,” she said. “You’ve managed to keep your clan together when others have failed.”

“I’ve tried,” he said. “I made a promise to my father that I would.” He’d promised that he would keep the clan as close to him as if they were his own children, that he would do everything in his power to keep them intact. But
a question had dogged him of late. Did the clan want that, too?

“I have long admired that about you,” Isabella said, turning to face him. She rested her chin on his shoulder, gazing up at him. Jamie draped his arm around her, but the closeness felt forced. There had been a time when he’d been eager for her touch, but tonight, he found it cumbersome. He wasn’t the sort of man to take pleasure with one woman in the afternoon and then kiss another that evening.

“Your clan admires you, too, Jamie. They look to you for strength and guidance in all things. I don’t think they would like to see you sell land to the English. Or worse.”

He looked down at her. “Worse?”

She shrugged and looked down. “Marry one.”

Jamie snorted, but his dismissal felt false. Hadn’t he thought of Daria in that way today? He’d rejected the foolish notion, of course, but he’d thought it all the same. “That’s ridiculous. Of course I won’t.”

“It gladdens my heart to hear it,” she said, and smiled. “She
is
quite bonny.”

“So are you,” Jamie said, noting the lack of conviction in his own voice.

Isabella noticed it, too. Her smile grew cool. “I risked my heart coming here today, Jamie. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d refused to see me. But I think—I have always thought—that we are destined to be together. Haven’t you? For the sake of our love, and for the sake of our clans—you and I both know the Campbells and Brodies can only be made stronger with our union.”

Jamie glanced away. What she said was true.

Isabella cupped his chin to make him look at her again. “You and I can be made stronger, too. I’ve never believed otherwise, even after all that has happened between our families. But the Brodies are ready to forgive it for the sake of our clan. The question remains . . . will you?” She rose up on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I still love you, Jamie Campbell, I do,” she whispered. “I hope you still love me.” She kissed him fully.

Her lips were soft and warm, and the male in Jamie responded. She was right; of course she was his future. She was the natural, logical choice. He closed his eyes and kissed her back.

Apparently he
was
the sort of man to take pleasure with one woman in the afternoon and kiss another that evening. Why, then, could he not rid himself of the image of Daria lying on her back, her arms folded behind her head, smiling up at the blue Scottish sky?

J
AMIE SLEPT VERY
little that night, his heart warring with his head, his body feeling as if a good part of him had gone missing. He was up well before dawn, staring into the cold hearth, thinking. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there—hours, maybe—when the sound of a barking dog filtered into his consciousness. He roused himself, shaking out his injured leg, and walked to the window, yawning as he pushed it open. The barking caught his attention again, and he leaned out to look.

He saw the red head of the boy first, racing across the expanse of green of the bailey, Anlan and Aedus at his
heels. The boy reached for something in the grass, pushing Anlan’s snout away from it, then turned and held it up. From that distance, Jamie couldn’t make out what it was.

He was about to turn from the window when Daria suddenly appeared, the train of her day gown trailing in the grass behind her, leaving a path in the morning dew. She took the thing from the boy, and together they examined it. A moment later, the boy stepped back and Daria threw the thing, very poorly, across the lawn. It scudded and fell into a pond.

The dogs raced for it. Aedus reached it first and bounded away with it, Daria and the lad, Peader, chasing after them. Aedus jumped into the pond with the thing held between his jaws, then trotted out, his tail held high, proud of his victory.

Just as Daria and Peader reached him, Aedus and Anlan both shook out their coats, spraying them. Peader squealed with harsh laughter. Daria draped her arm around his shoulders as the two of them headed back to the keep, leaving the dogs with the toy.

And Jamie stood at the window for a long time after they had disappeared from view, thinking.

After breakfast, he went to the throne room for a standing Friday morning discussion of clan business with Duff, Robbie, and Geordie.

“Are you ill, Laird?” Duff said as Jamie walked in, and glanced at his pocket watch.

“I am well,” Jamie said, and sat heavily in his chair. He had no desire to hear the clan business this morning. No desire whatsoever.

Duff put his watch back into his pocket. “I had a wee
chat with the Brodie laird this morning before they took their leave—”

“They’ve gone?” Jamie interrupted, surprised.

“Aye,” Duff said. “Said they never meant to stay as long as they had, but they quite liked the dancing.”

Jamie nodded, dubious. He hadn’t exactly settled things with Isabella or her father. He’d left her last night with a question still twisting between them. Were they reconciled, or not? “What news, then?” he asked, and absently rubbed his thumb along the gash in the chair’s leather.

“The Brodies have proposed a devil’s bargain,” Duff said. “They want a renewal of the betrothal, aye? But if we canna come to agreement on the terms, then they’ll agree to sell land to Murchison.”

“What has one to do with the other?” Jamie asked as his muscles began to tense.

“Nothing but satisfaction,” Duff said.

“Meaning?”

“The land borders ours in the east.”

Jamie stared at Duff, understanding then what they had done. Either he agreed to renew the engagement with Isabella, or the Brodies would work with Murchison to squeeze him out. The land meant nothing to the Brodies—they couldn’t graze cattle in those hills or farm it.

But Murchison could put dozens, if not hundreds, of sheep there. It would be only a matter of time before they encroached on Campbell land and began to compete with the cattle for grass. With the tenants in the west agreeing to sell, and the Brodies selling in the east, the Dundavie lands would be surrounded by sheep, with no escape but
through a marsh. “I see,” Jamie said. “They intend to extort a marriage, aye?”

Before Duff could answer, Geordie scribbled on his slate.
Hav care.

Jamie looked curiously at his brother.

Geordie wiped the slate clean and wrote again, holding it up to Jamie.
Yur hart.

Jamie shook his head, confused.

Frustrated, Geordie slapped his hand on his slate.

“What have we to lose?” Robbie said with a shrug. “We were set on the marriage before Geordie raised a bloody hand, aye? It was to our advantage, we said. It was our fault that she cried off. No’ a bloody thing has changed—it’s still the best arrangement for us.”

“Aye,” Duff agreed. “I canna think of a better option for us.”

“Neither can I,” Jamie said, and Geordie huffed impatiently. “But if I were to say no,” he added carefully, eliciting a gasp from Duff and a wide-eyed look of surprise from Robbie, “we might drain the marsh. They may surround us with sheep, aye, but we could drain the marsh and farm it.”

Duff’s eyes narrowed. He placed his beefy hands on the table before him. “Beggin’ your pardon, Laird, but are you suggesting that you
no’
marry the Brodie lass?”

“I’m no’ suggesting that, no,” Jamie said calmly, and rubbed his thumb along the gash in the chair. “But we must consider all our options.”

“Draining the marsh,” Robbie repeated skeptically. “You would take the suggestion of a slip of an English
woman with no more experience than a mockingbird?” He clucked, waving a hand dismissively at his cousin.

“No experience, aye,” Jamie agreed. “But you must admit it makes a wee bit of sense.”

I,
Geordie wrote.

Duff looked at Jamie as if he thought he’d lost his mind. “We need heirs, lad. Draining the marsh might make a wee bit of sense, but it canna give you heirs.”

Jamie shrugged and looked out the window.

“What in blazes are you thinking, then, Jamie?” Robbie demanded.

“I donna rightly know.” It was the honest truth. “But I’ve a lot to think about,” he said, and walked out of the throne room.

There were times in a man’s life that no counsel, no friend, no one could answer the questions that were burning in his head. No one but him.

He’d go to his hothouse. He did his best thinking there, when his hands were buried in rich Scottish earth. He made his way there, looking neither right nor left, not wanting to speak with anyone or hear any complaints about this or that. He wanted only to think about what he would do about the Brodies’ offer to settle the betrothal. What he would do with his bloody life.