Tempting The Laird

“Do you mean to drive?” she asked, alarmed.

“I had a mind to, yes. Don’t look so frightened of it, darling! Do you not trust your dear old Uncle Knox?”

“No!”

He laughed. “Well, then, if you prefer, you may drive,” he said gallantly.

“I prefer.”

He clucked his tongue at her. “So like Zelda you are. It’s uncanny.” He gladly handed her the reins. “Look here, look here!” he called to his companions. “My niece means to drive! That’s the way of it in Scotland, the women are as hard as brass!”

“Uncle!”

“I mean that in the most complimentary way,” he said as he settled back against the leather squabs. “My own sister is more Scot than English now, can you believe it? To think how she fought against being sent to Scotland to marry your father,” he said, and laughed heartily before pointing. “Take the north road.”

Catriona set the team to such a fierce trot that Uncle Knox had to grab on to the side of the carriage to keep from being tossed to the ground.

He was eager to call out points of interest as they drove, but Catriona scarcely noticed them, she was so tired. But when the road rounded a thicket, she did indeed notice, sitting at the base of a hill, an estate so grand, a house so vast, that she thought it must belong to the king.

The stone was dark gray, the dozens of windows, even from this distance, glistening in the afternoon sun. There were so many chimneys that she couldn’t possibly count them as they rolled by. “What is it?” she asked, awestruck.

“That, my dear girl, is Blackthorn Hall, the seat of the Duke of Montrose.”

The house disappeared behind more thicket. They climbed a hill in the cabriolet, and the road twisted around, at which point they were afforded another view of Blackthorn Hall and the large park behind it. A small lake was in the center, the lawn perfectly manicured. There was a garden so expansive that the colors of the roses looked like ribbons in the distance. The stables were as big as Auchenard, the hunting lodge near Balhaire that belonged to Catriona’s nephew, Lord Chatwick.

“Quite grand, isn’t it?” Uncle Knox remarked.

The road curved away from Blackthorn Hall, and Catriona returned her attention back to the road. “Did he really kill his wife, then?”

“You’ve heard it already! That is indeed what the locals say, but I don’t know that he did. Perhaps he sent her off to a convent. Whatever happened, it seems to be fact that she disappeared one night and no one has seen hide nor hair of her since.”

“And no one has looked for her?” Catriona asked.

“Oh, I suppose they have,” he said. “She was, by all accounts, a ginger-haired beauty, beloved by the tenants. I have heard it said she was a bright spot of light in a dismal man’s shadow. How he must have resented her,” Uncle Knox mused.

“Why?”

Uncle Knox laughed. “Don’t you know, Cat? Gentlemen of a certain disposition do not care to be overshadowed by the weaker sex.”

“But murder?” Catriona asked skeptically.

“Yes, well, some men are driven to mad passion by the right woman, darling.” He tapped her hand. “Mind you remember that.”

Catriona rolled her eyes. “Have you met him, then?” she asked. “The duke?”

“What? Why, no,” he said, sounding as if he’d just realized it and was surprised by it.

“If I lived here, I should make a point of meeting him,” Catriona said. “I’ll no’ believe such rumors without meeting the man.”

“So much like your aunt Zelda, aren’t you?” he said, shaking his head. “She would have walked up to Blackthorn and banged the knocker and asked his grace, ‘Did you murder your wife?’”

Catriona smiled.

Her uncle suddenly sat up. “There it is, there is Dungotty!” he said, swiping his hat off his head to use as a pointer.

Dungotty was a glorious house. It was half the size of Blackthorn Hall, but quite bigger than Catriona had expected, and rather elegant. It was at least as big as Norwood Park, her uncle’s seat and her mother’s childhood home. Dungotty was nestled in a forest clearing, and a large fountain spouted water from the mouth of three mermaids in the middle of a circular drive. They were arranged with their arms around each other, their faces turned up to the sun as if they were singing.

As Catriona steered the team into the drive, two men in livery and wigs emerged and took control of the team and helped Catriona and her uncle down.

“I’ve the perfect suite for you, my love,” Uncle Knox said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “It was once inhabited by the dowager of Dungotty.”

“Who was the family, then?” Catriona asked, casting her gaze up at the frieze above the grand entry.

“What family?”

Catriona gave him a sidelong glance. “The family that was forced to forfeit.”

“Ah, of course! You still harbor tender feelings, I see. I believe they were Hays. Or perhaps Haynes. Well, no matter. It was a very long time ago, and we should allow bygones to be bygones.”

“Spoken like an Englishman,” she muttered.

Uncle Knox laughed. “You might change your thinking when you see the rooms I’ve set aside for you.”

Well, as it happened, Uncle Knox had a point. The rooms he showed her to were beautiful—a bedroom, a sitting room and a very large dressing room. The suite had been done in pink and cream silks, and a thickly looped carpet warmed the wood-planked floors. The bed had an elaborate canopy, and the view out the three floor-to-ceiling windows featured a trimmed lawn and a picturesque glen with hills rising up on either side beyond. In the sitting room, a fire blazed in the hearth. It boasted upholstered chairs, a small dining table and a chaise. But perhaps the most welcome site was the brass tub in the dressing room.

“What do you think?” Uncle Knox asked.

“Aye, it’s bonny, uncle,” Catriona said, and looked up at the ceiling painted with an angelic scene. “Thank you.”

He smiled with pleasure. “Rest now, love. I’ll send a girl and a bath to you before supper. We’ve a fresh ham in honor of your arrival!”

Catriona wasn’t certain if he was more excited by her arrival or the prospect of fresh ham. She was excited by the prospect of a nap and a bath. “Before you go, uncle,” she said, catching her uncle before he disappeared through the door. “I’ve a letter,” she said, reaching into her pocket.

“My sister is determined to rule my life,” he said with a chuckle. “This will be the third letter I’ve received from her in as many weeks. What now?”

“No’ Mamma,” Catriona said. “It’s from Zelda.”

Uncle Knox’s expression softened. He looked at the letter Catriona held out to him. “She wrote me,” he said, his voice full of wonder.

“Aye, that she did. She left three for me to deliver, she did. One for my father. One for the reverend. And one for you.”

Uncle Knox took the letter and ran the tip of his finger over the ink where she’d written his name. “Thank you, my darling Cat,” he said, and hugged her tightly to him.

Catriona was suddenly overcome with a wave of emotion. “You’ll help me, will you no’, Uncle Knox?” she asked into his collar. “You’ll help me preserve what Zelda worked so hard to build, aye?”

“There now, lass, of course I will. But we will save talk of it until later, shall we? You need to rest from your journey and your loss.”

“But I—”

“We’ve plenty of time,” he said, and kissed her temple. “Rest now, darling.” He went out, his gaze on the letter.

Catriona closed the door behind him, then lay down on the counterpane of her bed and closed her eyes with a weary sigh. But as she drifted off to sleep, she kept seeing a broad back, a neat queue of black hair, held with a green ribbon, an arm stretched possessively over the back of an empty chair.

It was impossible to imagine that a man who looked as virile as he would find it necessary to kill his wife. Could he not have seduced her instead? Of course he could have—he was a duke. She’d never known a woman who could not be seduced with the idea of being a duchess.

What, then, had become of her?

CHAPTER THREE

HAMLIN GRAHAM, THE Duke of Montrose, Earl of Kincardine, Laird of Graham, was brushing a ten-year-old girl’s hair. It was not his forte, nor his desire.

These were the true troubles of a notorious duke.

“It’s too hard,” the girl, his ward, complained.

“What am I to do, then?” he asked brusquely, annoyed with the task and his clumsiness at something that seemed so simple. “You’ve a bird’s nest on your head.”

The girl, Eula—Miss Eula Guinne, to be precise—giggled.

“Why do you no’ have your maid brush your hair, then? She’s surely better than me.”

“I donna like her,” Eula said.

“Aye, and why no’?”

“Because she’s quite old. And she smells of garlic.”

Hamlin couldn’t argue—he’d caught a whiff of garlic a time or two from Mrs. Weaver.

“I should like a new maid.”

Hamlin rolled his eyes. “I’ll no’ let Mrs. Weaver go, Eula. She came all the way from England to serve me and has been in my employ for many years, aye?” There was also the slight problem of finding a suitable replacement were he to lose Mrs. Weaver, given his black reputation.

“But she’s no’ a maid, no’ really. She’s a housekeeper. I want a maid.”

Eula was very much like her cousin, Glenna Guinne, the woman Hamlin had once called wife. Glenna had wanted for things, too—all things, and always more things. It had been a loathsome burden to try to please her.

He took one of the jewel-tipped hairpins from an enamel box and set a thick curly russet tress of Eula’s hair back from her face. He did the same on the other side of her head.

“They’re no’ even,” Eula said petulantly, examining herself closely in the mirror.

It took Hamlin two more attempts before she was satisfied. When she was, she turned around and eyed him up and down. “You’re no’ properly dressed, Montrose.”

“I’ve told you, ’tis no’ proper for a young miss to address a duke by his title,” he said. He glanced down at his buckskins, his lawn shirt and a pair of boots that needed a good polish. “And I’m perfectly dressed for repairing a roof.”

“Which roof?”

“One of the outbuildings.”

“What happened to it?”

“It’s gained a hole.”

“Why must you do it, then? A footman or a groundskeeper ought to be the one, no’ you.”

Hamlin folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. “I beg your pardon, then, lass, but are you the lady of Blackthorn Hall now?”

She shrugged. “Cousin Glenna said dukes are no’ to work with their hands. Dukes are meant to think about important matters.”

“Well, this duke happens to like working with his hands, he does.” Hamlin put his hand on her shoulder and pointed her toward the door. “It’s time for your studies.”

“It’s always time for my studies,” Eula said with the weariness of an elderly scholar.

“Off with you, then, lass.”

Before Eula could skip out the door, Hamlin stopped her. “Are you no’ forgetting something, lass?”

She stopped mid-skip, twirled around, ran back to her vanity, picked up her slate and quit the room.

Hamlin walked in the opposite direction, striding down the carpeted hallway lined with portraits of Montrose dukes and their ladies. He swept down the curving staircase to the marble foyer and strode through the double entry doors a footman opened as he neared, and onto the portico.

He jogged down the brick steps and onto the drive, where he paused to look up at a bright blue sky. The summer had been unusually dry thus far, which created crystal clear days such as this.

He struck out, walking purposefully to a group of outbuildings that housed tools and a tack room. Men were waiting for him, their workbenches and tools arrayed around the edge of a storage building that had been damaged by a late spring storm.

“Your grace,” said his carpenter, inclining his head.

“Mr. Watson,” Hamlin said in return. “Fine day, aye?”

“’Tis indeed, milord.” He handed him a hammer.

Hamlin took it and ascended the ladder that had been placed against the wall. There was a time the servants of Blackthorn had spoken to him as if he were a person and not someone to be feared. Good day to ye, your grace. Been down to the river? Trout are jumping into the nets, they are.

When he had positioned himself on the roof, he leaned to his side. “A plank, Watson.”

“Aye, milord.” With the help of a younger man, Watson climbed the ladder with a plank of wood and helped Hamlin slide it into place. Hamlin held out his hand for nails. Nails were placed in his palm. He set them in his mouth save one, which he began to hammer.

He had not been entirely clear with Eula. It wasn’t the work he enjoyed, it was the hammering. He liked striking the head of a nail with as much force as a man could harness. He liked the reverberation of that strike through his body, how powerful it made him feel. Wholly in control. Capable of moving mountains and forging rivers. He’d not always felt that way. He’d not always been able to pound out his frustrations to feel himself again.

“Your grace,” Watson said.

“Hmm,” he grunted through a mouthful of nails.

“Your grace, someone comes, aye?”

Hamlin stopped hammering. He glanced up, saw a sleek little cabriolet behind a team of two trotting down the drive toward his house. He was surprised to see any conveyance coming down the road at all—no one called at Blackthorn now. There was no such thing as a social call. He spit the nails into the palm of his hand. “Who is it, then?” he asked of no one in particular.

“I donna recognize it,” Watson said.

Hamlin sighed irritably. He wanted to hammer nails. He wanted to repair this hole and feel as if he’d done something meaningful today. He wanted to feel his strength, and then his exhaustion. But he handed everything to Watson and climbed down the ladder, reaching the ground just as the carriage was reined to a halt...and not a moment too soon, as it happened. If the driver hadn’t reined when he did, the team would have run him over. As Hamlin waved the dust from his face, he squinted at the pair in the cabriolet. It was a woman who held the reins.

A gentleman, older than Hamlin by two dozen years or more, soft around the middle, climbed down, then held out his hand to help the driver. But that one had leapt like a stag from her seat on the opposite side of the cabriolet. The force of her landing knocked her bonnet slightly to one side, and he noticed she had hair the color of wheat. She righted her hat, then strode forward to join the older man.

There was something about the woman that struck Hamlin as odd. Perhaps it was the way she walked as they approached him and his men—confidently and with purpose, her arms moving in time with her legs. He was accustomed to women walking slowly and with swinging hips, in ways that were designed to attract a male’s eye. This woman moved as if she had someplace quite important to be and not a moment could be spared.

The other notable thing about her was that she looked him directly in the eye, and not the least bit demurely. She was not complicated, but rather easy to read. Women used to smile at him in ways that made him question if he knew anything at all. But this woman gave him pause—generally, when anyone looked at him with such undiluted purpose, it was to request something or to accuse him.

“How do you do, sir?” the older man asked.

Hamlin shifted his gaze to the gentleman.

“Be a good man, will you, and send someone to inform the duke we’ve called. Knox Armstrong, Earl of Norwood,” he said, and bowed his head.

Hamlin stared at him. Norwood. He was English, quite obviously. Should he know him? He didn’t recall the name and wondered what in bloody hell he was to be accused of now.

The woman cleared her throat.

“Ah. And my niece Miss Catriona Mackenzie of Balhaire,” he added.

Hamlin looked again at the woman. She smiled prettily.

A moment passed as Hamlin considered the two of them. Miss Catriona Mackenzie of Balhaire arched a brow as if to silently remind him he was to fetch the duke. And then, in the event he did not recall what he was to do, she said, “If you would be so kind as to tell the duke we’ve called, then.”

Her voice lilted with a Scottish accent. It was a lovely, lyrical voice, and he imagined her reading stories to children, soothing them to sleep. It was a voice quite at odds with her direct manner.

“You might tell him yourself,” Hamlin said.

Norwood’s eyes widened with surprise, and he exchanged a look with his niece. The two of them suddenly burst into laughter, startling Hamlin and his men.

“Good God, man, we cannot simply waltz into a grand house and announce our presence, can we? That is not the way things are done. One must inform the duke we’ve called, and he must decide if he shall receive us.”

“Is that how it is done, then?” Hamlin drawled, aware that the niece was looking at him with amusement shining in her eyes.

“Well,” the earl said, smiling jovially, “perhaps I should say that is how we do it.”

Aye, the English thought themselves superior in every wee thing. Hamlin folded his arms across his chest. “I am the duke.”

The niece looked startled, but Norwood seemed quite diverted by it, as if they were playing a game. “You are Montrose?”

“I am.”

He looked at the men behind Hamlin, and whatever he saw there convinced him that Hamlin was telling the truth. “The devil you say. Well, then!” he said, smiling broadly now. “A pleasure to make your esteemed acquaintance, your grace.” He bowed low. “You will forgive me for not recognizing you straightaway, but you can imagine my confusion, seeing you whale away at a nail as you were.”

“Why should that confuse you, then?”

Norwood blinked.

“Because we’ve never known a duke to lift more than a cup, have we, uncle?” the niece said, and laughed.

Hamlin shifted his gaze back to her. This woman had not an ounce of conceit in her. Nor an ounce of manners, as one might expect, given that she was the niece of an English earl.

“Aye, well, this duke is no’ afraid of a hammer. Or a cup.”

“Apparently no’,” she said with a pert smile, and her gray-blue eyes glittered like the surface of the lake in bright sunlight. Hamlin was momentarily blinded by it...until he realized that all gathered were waiting for him to speak.

He turned toward Watson. “Go, then, and inform Stuart we’ve visitors, aye?” he said low. He turned to his guests and said, “If you will be so kind as to carry on to the entrance. My butler will show you in. I’ll join you shortly.”

“Thank you, your grace,” Norwood said, and gestured for his niece to come along.

Hamlin watched her ascend to the driver’s seat once more, then stepped out of the way of the cabriolet, which proved to be a wise decision, for the niece started up the team with such enthusiasm that they practically launched into space with the small carriage flying behind them.

Hamlin looked around at his men. They were all staring at him as if they’d seen a comet. “Aye,” he said, in taciturn agreement. No other words were needed—to a man, they all understood that what they had just witnessed was not the natural way of things.

CHAPTER FOUR

STUART, A PRIM and proper butler, as thin as a reed, his neckcloth tied as tightly as a garrote, showed Catriona and her uncle into a small drawing room with brocade drapes, furnishings upholstered in silk and a wall of books. A clock on the mantel ticked away the minutes for them.

“He means to make us wait,” Catriona said as she made her third restless trip around the room.

Uncle Knox had made himself quite comfortable on the settee and was currently examining a porcelain figurine of a small Highland fiddler. “Well, darling, we did make a rather unfortunate mistake in thinking him someone other than the duke.”

“Who could blame us?” Catriona asked. “He looked like a carpenter, he did.” A strong, strapping, handsome carpenter. His eyes were as black as his hair, his lashes as black as his eyes. His shoulders were as broad as a horse and his hips as firm as a—

“We should not judge a man by his appearance,” her uncle absently opined.

It was too late. She’d judged him by his appearance and had found him ruggedly appealing. “No,” she agreed. “But might we judge him a wee bit? He doesna look a murderer, does he?”

“I hardly know, darling. I am not acquainted with any murderers. I’m uncertain what to look for, precisely.”

Well, she’d never known a murderer, either, but she was convinced the duke did not look like a murderer. He looked like someone who ought to be wearing a crown, or leading an army of Highland soldiers, or breaking wild horses. He had a commanding presence—even more so once she’d realized with a wee thrill that he wasn’t a tradesman after all, but a duke and all that entailed—but not for a moment did he look the sort to murder. Catriona would be bitterly disappointed if she discovered he was.

She made her fourth trip around the room. She’d never been very good at waiting. In fact, she had coaxed her uncle into calling at Blackthorn Hall today because she couldn’t bear to wait another moment to discuss the abbey, which Uncle Knox was reluctant to do. He wanted her to put it out of her mind for a time, and enjoy her visit. But Catriona could not put it out of her mind for any length of time, really, and certainly not without something to divert her instead. So she’d cajoled him into calling on the mysterious Duke of Montrose.

She paused at the shelving to examine his books. The duke had a collection of tomes concerning history, astronomy and philosophy. No plays, no sonnets. A serious man, then. Daisy brought Catriona novels from England, tales of chivalry and love and adventure on the seas. Did the duke read nothing for pleasure? Was the man who inhabited that physique opposed to the simplest diversion?

“Sit, Cat, my love. You’re wreaking havoc on my nerves.”

“I canna sit and wait like a parishioner for the end of the sermon,” she complained.

Just then, the door swung partially open. A russet-haired head popped around the edge of the door about knob high. The head slid in just so that two brown eyes were visible. And then the door slowly swung open.

Uncle Knox gained his feet, clasped his hands at his back, then leaned forward, squinting at the creature who peeked around the door. “Good day,” he said.

The child moved, presenting enough of her body to know that it was a lass who eyed them. The other half remained hidden behind the door. “I’m Eula,” she said. “Who are you, then?”

“Good afternoon, Miss Eula,” Uncle Knox said. “Lord Norwood.” He bowed. “And this is my niece Miss Mackenzie.”

Catriona curtsied.

The lass looked at Catriona, her gaze sweeping over her, lingering on the hem of Catriona’s gown, which had been embroidered with vines and bluebirds. “Did you come to call on Montrose?”

Uncle Knox exchanged a look with Catriona.

“That’s the duke,” the lass said. “He lives here, too.”

“Aye, we have,” Catriona confirmed.

“Are you his friends?”

“Not as yet,” said Uncle Knox. “But we do mean to change that.”

The girl slid all the way into the room, her back to the wall. “He doesna have any friends,” she said, staring at them suspiciously.

Uncle Knox covered a laugh behind a cough.

“Aye, we’ve heard it said,” Catriona agreed.

The lass pushed away from the door and came closer to Catriona, peering at her curiously, her gaze taking in every bit of Catriona’s gown, her face, her hair. “You’re verra bonny.”

“Thank you kindly,” Catriona said. “So are you, Miss Eula. Do you live here, then, with his grace?”