The Last Debutante (6 page)

That woman was not in this cottage.

The woman in the kitchen moved as if she weren’t certain what she was to do next. She pulled bowls from the shelf and set them on the table, then picked them up and replaced them, only to find another size.

“What is the matter?” Daria asked.

“What is the matter?” Mamie repeated sharply, and slapped the bowl on the table before whirling about to face a surprised Daria. “I told you to leave the poor gentleman alone, that’s what! I specifically asked you not to enter that room, and look what you’ve done!”

Girlish panic raced through Daria. Did Mamie know he’d kissed her? Could she see that the kiss was still singing through her? Daria was prepared to confess he was delirious, calling her by another name.

“I didn’t do anything!” Daria protested. At least she
didn’t think she had. There had been a bit of a contretemps between her and her grandmother this morning, as Daria had refused to accompany her into the forest again, on the grounds that she did
not
gather berries like a farmer, and certainly not in forests full of wild animals and men who shot other men and left them to die. Mamie had seemed confused by her refusal, desperate to go out, and just as desperate not to leave Daria alone with the stranger. She had indeed forbidden Daria from entering his room while she went out to gather whatever in heaven’s name it was she gathered in the woods.

“Well, now he’s awake and I’ve nothing to ease his pain!” Mamie added, and pivoted around to the shelf. “You have vexed him with your meddling.”

“
My
meddling?” Daria exclaimed. “He awakened all on his own—” Another pointless argument. She had begged, argued, and cajoled her grandmother to summon help, but Mamie was steadfast in her refusal to seek it, and seemed quite perturbed with Daria for even asking.

But now, she was suddenly smiling as if she’d not been the least bit cross only moments before. “Be a sweetling and go out to fetch the bandages I’ve hung out to dry. We must change them.” She winked at Daria, then rose up on her tiptoes to the shelf to reach the brown vial.

“He doesn’t want a tincture,” Daria said reprovingly.

Mamie’s face darkened again. “Darling, please don’t argue—I really must change his bandages.”

The bandage argument was one Daria could not win. She sighed and picked up a roughly woven basket from the floor, stalked to the door and yanked it open, and nearly stumbled over the dog. He was lying across the stones, a
large bone between his paws. He sprang to his feet and stuck his snout in the space between the door and the frame, his tail wagging madly.

Daria stepped over him and pulled the door shut. She frowned down at him and his bone. It was a
ham
bone, and given its size and the distance she guessed he could have carried it, she presumed that he’d procured it from someone nearby. Unless Mamie had slaughtered a pig, which, after two days in this cottage with this madwoman, would not surprise Daria in the least.

The dog bounded into the garden before her, leaping over weedy plants. Daria grimaced as her shoe sank into the dark soil. By the time she reached the line where the linens were lifting lazily on the morning breeze, the dog had disappeared onto the path she had walked from the main road, leaving his bone behind.

She dropped the basket, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the linens Mamie had washed. Her grandmother was, if nothing else, rather industrious. Daria pulled a sheet down, folded it carelessly, and tossed it in the basket. She happened to glance up and saw Mamie in the window of the man’s room. Mamie was looking at Daria, watching her, too. Mamie smiled thinly and cranked the window shut.

Daria sighed irritably. She tried to picture
this
Mamie in Hadley Green. She tried to picture her in their family home.

Daria’s family home wasn’t the largest house by any means, but it was very lovely. It had two stories and an attic, where Mr. Griswold had a pair of rooms on one end and old Mrs. Bromley, who did the cooking and housekeeping, had a pair on the other.

The house had six bedrooms, as well as a drawing room, dining and sitting rooms, and a small library where her parents kept their notes and books. They fancied themselves botanists, and in recent years they had taken on the complex task of grafting a new strain of orchid. Daria didn’t know all the details, and it wouldn’t matter if she did—she was not invited to their private orchid party.

They spent their time in the hothouse, their forms barely distinguishable from one another. Daria spent her time in the main house, with its ivy-covered walls that had ten large-paned windows facing the lane. Daria couldn’t picture her grandmother in that house any longer—at least not like this.

She pulled the bandages from the drying line and tossed them in the basket. Removing the largest of the bed linens next, she tucked it under her chin and was attempting to fold it when she heard a horse coming down the path.

Daria looked up to see a horse and rider ambling down from the hills to the west. Not just any rider, mind you, but a bear of a man who seemed almost as tall as his horse. His feet scarcely cleared the ground. His hair was pulled back in an old-fashioned queue. He was wearing a dark coat and buckskins.

The dog suddenly appeared, barking furiously at the intrusion, racing through the woods to the path. He stopped in the middle of the path, and with his legs braced wide apart, he barked.

“Uist!”
the man shouted.
“Suidh!”
The dog instantly sat, his tail brushing the ground behind him in a happy wag. A moment later, he suddenly hopped up and trotted forward to sniff the horse.

The man’s gaze had locked on Daria, his expression cold and stern. A flutter of fear swept up her spine. She glanced nervously at the cottage, debating whether she should call Mamie. In the moment that took, he’d reined up beside the fence. And the dog, the worthless dog, had trotted back into the field.

“Madainn mhath
.” The man’s voice was low and soft, belying the dark look in his black eyes. He didn’t move, but he seemed coiled, ready to strike.

Daria blinked. “Ah . . . English, please?”

One wildly thick, dark brow arched high above the other. “Good morning, then,” he said in heavily accented English. She slowly lowered the linen sheet she was holding and glanced at the cottage again, assessing how quickly she could run inside and bar the door. Where were Mamie and that enormous gun? Daria would very much like to see her with it at present. She thought of screaming, but then worried that Mamie might do something rash and put herself in harm’s way. So Daria stood rooted to the ground, the linen clutched tightly in her hand.

“Perhaps you might help me, aye? I’m in search of a man who’s gone missing nigh on two days.”

Daria’s heart suddenly leapt. What if this was the man who had shot the stranger inside? “I cannot help you,” she said quickly. “I am here alone with my grandmother.” She realized the moment she said it that it was not a wise thing to say. If he was a robber, she’d just opened up to him the possibility of robbing this cottage.

In fact, his gaze narrowed, as if he were assessing the feasibility of it. He shifted slightly in his saddle, the leather
creaking and moaning under his weight, and glanced back at the cottage.

“We cannot help you.”

He took her in once more, from her braided hair to her soiled hem. “He’s a tall man, the one I want. Long in the hair,” he said, gesturing to his shoulder. “Broad in the chest. Eyes the color of acorns.”

“No.” Daria shook her head. “No one like that.” She could feel the beat of her heart ratcheting up, making her breathless. She was teetering between confessing he was inside and praying for mercy, and running for her life and praying for deliverance.

He studied her closely.

Daria’s heart was nearly pounding out of her chest. This bear of a man could crush her with one of his giant paws, if he were of a mind. “No one but us and the Brodie lads,” she blurted, summoning up the mysterious young men Mamie had referenced. “
Three
of them.” She smiled. Nervously, uncertainly, but she smiled.

The man’s jaw clenched. He looked her up and down once more, muttering something in his language. “Aye, then.” He made a clicking sound, and the horse ambled on.

Paralyzed with fear, Daria stood watching until he’d turned down the path that led to the main road, not daring to run and give herself away until he was gone. Until she realized he would find her trunk on the road. Lord knew what he would believe then. She balled the linen into the basket, picked it up, and fled inside the cottage.

Mamie was there, waiting. She latched the door behind
Daria and gave her a grim look as she wrapped her arms tightly around her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m all right,” Daria said, in spite of her racing heart. “I’ve never seen a man as big as that. Who was he?”

“I don’t know,” Mamie said, and dropped her arms from around Daria. “Oh, my darling, that must have been such a fright! One must have a care in these Highlands. There are scofflaws and bandits roaming about.”

Daria’s panic ratcheted up even more.

“What did he want?”

“Him!”
Daria cried, pointing to the hall. “He was looking for
him,
Mamie. I told him that we’d seen no one but the Brodie lads.”

“Which way did he go?” she asked anxiously.

“Down the path to the main road,” Daria said, gesturing wildly. “Where, I might add, my trunk still sits. I
hope
it sits there. He will see it, and he will know it belongs to us. He will know something is not right, for who leaves a trunk on the road? And if there are Brodie lads, as you say, why have they not carried it up? What if he comes back, Mamie? What if he is the one who shot him? What if he comes back for him and shoots
us
?”

Before they could answer, they were both startled by a shout of the unintelligible language from the back room.

Mamie quickly dug the bandages out of the basket, pressed them into Daria’s hands, then hurried into the kitchen and picked up a bowl from the table. The bowl contained a dark liquid that smelled like burnt wood. “You’ll have to do it, Daria,” she said gravely.

“What? What am I to do?”

“Dress his wounds.”

Daria gasped. She shoved the bandages back at her grandmother. “Mamie,
no
! I
cannot
—”

“You can, and must! His bandages must be changed and I . . . I agree, I must seek help.”

“You agree
now
? You agree to go for help and leave me to change his bandages while a man the size of a beast roams about outside? No, Mamie, I will not!”

But Mamie wasn’t listening. She had already removed her apron and was reaching for her cloak. “You have argued that I should go to the authorities, and now I am going to go. It is imperative! But we cannot in good conscience leave his wounds to fester—”

“Don’t leave me alone, Mamie. Please,” Daria pleaded.

It was too late. Mamie was already at the door. “You’ll do very well, my love. Spread the salve on his wounds and wrap clean bandages about them. Lock the door behind me, Daria, and open it
only
to me.”

More shouting from the back made Daria jump what felt like a foot off the ground.
“Mamie!”

Mamie suddenly grabbed Daria’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “Please, for God’s sake, do as I ask! I will be back before nightfall, I swear to you. But we cannot let his wounds fester—he could lose a limb!” She let go of Daria’s hands, picked up the big blunderbuss that was leaning up against the door, and slid the bolt open. “Lock the door,” she warned Daria, and slipped out.

Daria gaped at the closed door. Her grandmother had just left her alone to clean the wounds of a strange man while another one roamed about outside.

“The bolt!” she heard her grandmother call.

Daria scurried forward to slide the bolt and lock the
door, then dashed to one of the small windows to look out. Her grandmother was marching toward the path that led to the road, the gun on her shoulder, the dog trotting behind her.
“Mad,”
Daria muttered. “She’s gone quite mad.”

The man shouted again, causing Daria to jump again. She tried to breathe deeply to calm her racing heart, but it was no use.

“Bloody hell, where have you gone?”
the man bellowed in English.

Daria whirled around and looked at the closed bedroom door. All right, then. There was no use crying over it. She squared her shoulders, then picked up the bandages and the bowl.

How was she to do it?
How could she remove the bandages from his naked body, touch his flesh, and then wrap the bandages around him again? It was beyond anything she knew. She was quite happy to be courted and wooed by men, but she realized that she didn’t really
know
men. Lord Horncastle had kissed her once and left her feeling cold. Mr. Reston, who had come down last summer, had courted her intently and had kissed her more than once, his hands wandering her body in a rather pleasant interlude. But Daria had felt nothing but his arms and shoulders beneath his proper shirt and coat. She had never, in all her life, touched a strange man’s skin. The memory of that stranger’s kiss, that mad, drugged kiss, slipped down her like warm milk.

Another string of the Scottish language shook her; Daria paused to grab a cleaving knife from the shelf and tucked it up under her arm. Her hands were shaking, she noticed with chagrin. So she drew another breath to steady herself and marched down the hall.

J
AMIE HAD RALLIED
enough that he could feel his fury beginning to strengthen him. He shouted once more in Gaelic, since ladies shouldn’t hear what invective he said, even if they were evil.

At last he heard footsteps coming down the hall, and he could tell from the delicate tread that it was the younger one.
Daria.
Seated upright with his back to the stone wall, he watched the door slowly open, creaking loudly on its hinges.