The Lady and the Laird

“I can bear it no longer. I am tormented night and day. I cannot speak. I cannot eat. The thought of you in another man’s arms, in another man’s bed, is intolerable to me. The thought of Methven making love to you when you are mine... You are the very breath of life to me! Come away with me before it is too late....”

There was a great deal more in the same vein, but Robert skipped over it. He had read quite enough for it to turn his stomach. It seemed, however, that Dulcibella had liked that sort of thing given that the letter writer had persuaded her to elope.

“Who wrote this stuff?” Jack asked. He was trying to read over Robert’s shoulder.

“It’s signed Lachlan,” Robert said.

“That must be Lachlan MacMorlan,” Jack said, squinting at the signature. “He was completely besotted with Miss Brodrie. I didn’t think he would do anything about it, though. Thought he was too lazy.”

“I’ll string his guts from the castle battlements,” Brodrie said violently. His face was a mottled red and white now. He looked as though he was about to burst a blood vessel. He was shaking his fist, in which he clutched several more handwritten sheets. “Debauching my daughter with romantic poetry!” he roared. “The craven coward! If he wanted her, why could he not fight for her like a man?”

Robert crumpled the letter in his hand. “Presumably because this approach worked better,” he said. “I was not aware that Miss Brodrie was of a romantic disposition.”

He had not, he realized, known much about Dulcibella at all. It was a little late to realize that now, but he had not been interested in her except as a way to unlock his inheritance. He needed a wife—and an heir—urgently. He had proposed to Dulcibella for that reason alone. He had noticed that she was pretty. He had found her laughter grating and her helplessness irritating. That was the sum total of their relationship.

“Daft girl was always reading,” Brodrie said. “Took after her mother that way. I never paid it much attention. She liked those soppy novels, Pamela and the like.”

It was all starting to make a great deal more sense to Robert. He tapped the crumpled letter impatiently against the palm of his hand.

“I don’t believe MacMorlan wrote that,” Jack said suddenly. “I was at school with him. He’s no scholar.”

“Perhaps he was too shy to share his poetry with you all,” Robert said sarcastically. He scanned a few more lines. “He has quite a talent.”

“If Lachlan MacMorlan is shy,” Jack said, “I’m the pope.”

“Gentlemen...” The minister was hovering, anxiety writ large on his plump face. “Is the service to go ahead?”

“Evidently not,” Robert said. “If only Miss Brodrie had confided her feelings in me, she and Lord Lachlan could have had the booking instead.”

Both Lord Brodrie and the minister were looking at him in perplexity. Robert realized that they were wondering if he could possibly be as cold and indifferent as he sounded. He had not cared a jot about Dulcibella, but he did care very much about losing his inheritance. The congregation was shifting and shuffling now as everyone tried to overhear what was going on and pass word to his or her neighbor. Their expressions were shocked, scandalized, amused, depending on the guests and their disposition. Wilfred of Cardross was making no attempt to hide his glee. He, more than anyone, would welcome the ruin of Robert’s plans and the opportunity it gave him to claim back Methven land.

Robert clenched his fists. He was not going to give Cardross the chance to take Golden Isle and his northern estates. They were the most ancient part of his patrimony, and he would hold them by force if he had to do so.

His eyes met those of Lucy MacMorlan. She was looking directly at him. She did not look shocked or scandalized or amused.

Lucy looked guilty.

Robert felt a leap of interest. He knew that Lady Lucy was close to her brother. He had observed them together at various social events and knew they had an easy friendship. It seemed Lachlan might have confided in Lucy about the elopement. Certainly she knew something.

For a long moment Robert held her gaze. Faint pink color came into her cheeks. He saw her bite her lip. Then she broke the contact with him very deliberately, turned to pick up the little green-beaded reticule that matched the ribbon on her bonnet and touched her father gently on the arm to indicate that she wanted to leave. The guests were spilling out of the pews now, milling around uncertainly in the aisles while they waited for someone to tell them what was happening.

“Well?” Brodrie demanded. “What’s to do? Aren’t you going after them, my lord?”

“Sir,” Robert drawled, “your daughter has gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid marrying me. It would be churlish of me to go after her and bring her back.” He pushed the letter into Jack’s hands. “Tell everyone that they are welcome at the wedding breakfast, Jack,” he said. “A pity to waste a good party.” It was he who had paid for the celebrations, Brodrie being too strapped for cash.

“Party?” Brodrie was boggling. “You would celebrate my daughter running off with another man, sir?”

“We have already given the gossips more than enough cause for conjecture,” Robert said. “I refuse to play the heartbroken jilt.” He laughed. “Besides, the wedding is bought and paid for. And you have a daughter married and off your hands. One hopes. Celebrate it.” He sketched Lord Brodrie a bow. “Excuse me. I will join you shortly, but first there is something I must do.”

“By God, sir, he is a coldhearted bastard,” he heard Brodrie say to Jack as he walked away. The man sounded torn between admiration and disbelief.

He did not hear Jack’s reply. But he did not disagree with Brodrie’s assessment.

* * *

LACHLAN HAD RUN off with Dulcibella Brodrie.

The gossip rippled down the pews like the incoming tide. Lucy, sitting at the back of the church between her father and her two sisters, was almost the last to hear it.

“Run away to Gretna Green... Gone this morning... Eloped with Lachlan MacMorlan...”

Lucy felt apprehension tiptoe along her spine. Damn Lachlan. Could he not have sorted this out sooner? It had taken two months and almost twenty love letters to persuade Dulcibella to jilt Robert Methven, and she had to do it now, leaving the man standing alone in front of all his wedding guests.

Lucy felt horribly guilty. She had not really expected to feel so bad. Up until this very moment, she had in fact felt rather pleased with herself. Dulcibella’s surprisingly staunch refusal to succumb to Lachlan’s wooing had meant a big profit on the letters. Lucy had been able to give so much to her charities: warm blankets and medicines and new clothes for the children. But of course there was always a price to pay. And Lord Methven was paying it now. Lucy felt as though she had let him down in some obscure way, as though she had owed him her loyalty and had betrayed him. Perhaps it was because all those years ago he had kept his word and never revealed that he had seen her on the terrace at Forres that night. She had not thought about that in eight years. Yet now she thought that he had kept faith with her while she had repaid him in deceit.

“Papa.” Lucy touched her father’s arm, leaned toward Mairi and Christina. “I fear we are about to become as popular as a fox in a hen coop,” she whispered. “Lachlan has eloped with the bride.”

The Duke of Forres pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He looked perplexed. It was his natural state; he was a scholar and a recluse who always gave the impression that half his mind was still in his books. “Lachlan?” he said vaguely. “Has he? I wondered where he was.”

“Halfway to Gretna by now, by the sound of it,” Mairi said. “Typical Lachlan. He always wants what belongs to someone else.”

Lucy looked up. Over the heads of the congregation, she could see Robert Methven talking to his groomsman and to Lord Brodrie. He turned slightly toward her and she saw that there were some sheets of paper in his hand. She felt a clutch of fear ripple through the pit of her stomach. Those sheets looked suspiciously like the letters Lachlan had sent Dulcibella.

Suddenly, without warning, Methven looked up and directly at her. His dark blue gaze was intent. It felt as though there were an invisible thread pulled tight between them. Lucy felt the jolt of that contact down to her toes.

He knows.

Her heart started to batter her bodice, slamming in hard beats. She could feel panic rising in her throat, cutting off her breath. How Robert Methven could possibly know that she had had a hand in this was a mystery, and yet she did not doubt it for a second.

She saw Methven’s gaze drop to the letters in his hand and then rise again to pin her very deliberately in its full blue blaze. He made some comment to his groomsman and took a purposeful step in Lucy’s direction.

She had to get out of there.

“Papa,” she said. “Excuse me. I need some fresh air. I will see you out at the carriage.”

“Of course, my dear,” the duke murmured. “Dear, oh dear, I am not at all sure what to say to Methven. Such appallingly bad behavior on Lachlan’s part.”

“Excuse me,” Lucy said again, hastily. She started to squeeze out of the pew. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Robert Methven advancing down the nave of the church toward them. She had a sudden vision of him throwing down his gauntlet on the floor of the church and challenging the duke to combat for the dishonor done to his name and his family. A hundred years before, such an idea might not have been so outrageous. It did not in fact seem that outlandish now, especially as Wilfred Cardross was smiling broadly and making his delight at Methven’s humiliation all too plain.

“It could not have happened to a more deserving fellow,” Cardross said. “I must stand Lachlan a whisky next time I see him.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Wilfred,” Lucy said crossly, venting her guilt on someone else. “You always have to crow.”

“When it is a case of seeing a Methven brought low,” Wilfred said, smoothing his lacy cuffs, “of course I do. Besides...” He beamed again. “If Methven cannot fulfill the terms of his inheritance, then half his estates are forfeit. To me.”

Lucy looked at him with deep dislike. Wilfred had been making mysterious pronouncements along these lines over the past few months, ever since he had come back from London. She knew there was some sort of ongoing lawsuit between him and Robert Methven, but since the case was still sub judice, Wilfred could not discuss it. Instead he dropped these irritating and self-satisfied hints. But if Wilfred was right and Methven’s inheritance depended on his marriage, then he would be even more furious to be jilted. Suddenly Lucy felt so nervous that she could not draw breath.

She was in big trouble.

She squeezed past her cousin and out into the aisle. It was now packed with wedding guests, all milling around and chattering. “Excuse me,” Lucy said rapidly for a third time, trying to carve a path through the congregation toward the nearest door.

She threw a look back over her shoulder. Several people had ambushed Robert Methven on his way down the aisle, presumably to ask him what was going on. He was answering courteously enough, but his eyes were still fixed on her, fierce and focused. As he caught her gaze, Lucy saw a flash of grim amusement light the deep blue depths. He knew she was running from him and he was coming after her.

It was only as she reached the church door, out of breath and with her heart pounding, that she realized her tactical mistake. She should have stayed inside, surrounded by people. Robert Methven could not have interrogated her there. She would have been safe. Except she suspected that he was the sort of man who would simply have picked her up and carried her out of the church had he wanted to speak to her in private. He would not care if he outraged convention.

Galvanized by the thought, Lucy started to hurry down the uneven path toward the lych-gate. The road beyond was blocked with carriages. The little village of Brodrie had seen nothing on the scale of this wedding since the laird had married thirty years before.

“Lady Lucy.” There was a step behind her on the path. Lucy froze. She wanted to run, but that would be undignified. It would also end badly. She could not run in her silk slippers and Robert Methven would be faster than she was.

She turned slowly.

“Lord Methven.” The moment of confrontation had arrived too soon. She felt completely unprepared. “I am sorry,” she said. “Sorry for your...” She paused.

“Loss?” Robert Methven suggested ironically. “Or sorry that your brother is such a blackguard that he elopes with another man’s bride?”

His voice was rough edged, rubbing against Lucy’s senses like skates on ice. No educated man, no gentleman, spoke with a Scots accent, but there was a trace of something in Robert Methven’s voice that was as abrasive as he was. Perhaps it was the time he had spent abroad that had rubbed off the patina of civilization in him. Whatever it was, it made Lucy shiver.

He was blocking the path in front of her and he did not move. As always, his height and the breadth of his shoulders, the sheer solid masculine strength of him, overwhelmed her. This time, though, Lucy knew she could not allow herself to be intimidated.

“Lord Methven.” She tried again. She smiled her special smile. It was composed and sympathetic and it gave—she hoped—no indication at all of the way in which her heart thumped and her breath trapped in her chest. “I know that Lachlan has behaved badly—”

“Damn right he has,” Robert Methven said. “He is a scoundrel.”

Well, that was true, if a little direct from a gentleman to a lady. But then Methven was nothing if not direct. Lucy could feel the hot color stinging her cheeks. Generally she had far too much poise for any gentleman to be able to put her to the blush. Perhaps it was because Robert Methven was so blunt that she felt so ill at ease in his company. On a positive note, however, he was blaming Lachlan for the letters so she was perfectly safe. He had no idea she had been involved.

“You look very guilty,” Methven said conversationally. “Why is that?”

Suddenly Lucy felt as though she was on shaky ground after all.

“I apologize for that too,” she said shortly. “It is just the way I look.”

Methven’s firm lips tilted up in a mocking smile. Lucy felt mortified. She never lost her temper and was certainly never rude to anyone. It simply was not good behavior. Yet Robert Methven always seemed able to get under her skin.

“I like the way you look,” Methven said, shocking her all the more. He raised one hand and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. The constricted feeling in Lucy’s chest increased. It felt as though her bodice had been buttoned so tight she was unable to draw in her breath at all. The skin beneath his fingers burned.

“I thought you looked guilty because you knew about the elopement,” Methven said. His hand fell to his side. “I thought that you might even have helped the happy couple?”

Lucy felt the breath catch in her throat. Under his gaze she felt exposed, her emotions dangerously unprotected, her reactions impossible to hide.

“I...” She realized that she did not know what she was going to say. Methven’s cool blue gaze seemed to pin her to the spot like a butterfly on a slide. She felt helpless.

She took a deep breath and pressed one hand to her ribs to ease the rapid pound of her heart. Her mind steadied. She hated to lie. It was wrong. But she told herself that she had not played any part in the elopement. Not directly.

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. She could feel her blush deepening, guilty flags in her hot cheeks. “That is—” She scrambled for further speech. Methven was watching her silently. His stillness was quite terrifying, like that of a predatory cat.

“I knew that Lachlan was in love with Miss Brodrie,” she said. Already it felt as though she had said too much, as though she were on the edge of a slippery slope. “That is all. I didn’t know about the elopement, or the love letters—” She stopped, feeling her stomach drop like a stone as she realized what she had said, what she had done. A wave of heat started at her toes and rose upward to engulf her whole body.

“I did not mention any love letters,” Robert Methven said. His tone was very gentle but the look in his eyes had sharpened.

Once again there was silence, acute in its intensity. Lucy could hear the soft hush of the breeze in the grass. She could smell the cherry blossom. She was captured by the look in Robert Methven’s eyes, pinned beneath that direct blue stare.

“I...” Her mind was a terrifying blank. She could think of no way out.

“I hear your brother is no scholar,” Methven said. There was a harder undertone to his voice now. “But you, Lady Lucy...you are a noted authoress, are you not?”

Panic tightened in Lucy’s chest. She could hear the anger hot beneath his words.

“I...”

“So very inarticulate all of a sudden,” Methven mocked.

“Methven, my dear fellow.” The Duke of Forres was hurrying toward them down the path, Lucy’s sisters behind him. The rest of the wedding guests were spilling out of the church now. “My dear chap,” the duke said again. “I don’t know what to say. I do apologize for the incivility of my son in running off with your future wife. Frightful bad manners.”

The moment was broken. Lucy drew a sharp breath and drew closer to Mairi’s side for comfort and support. She could feel herself shaking.

Robert Methven’s gaze remained fixed on her face. “Pray do not give the matter another thought, Your Grace,” he said. “I am sure I shall find a way to claim recompense.” He bowed to Lucy. “We shall continue our conversation later, madam.”

Not if she could help it.

Lucy watched him walk away. His stride was long and he did not look back.

“Very civil,” the duke said. He sounded surprised. Evidently, Lucy thought, he had missed the implied threat in Robert Methven’s words.

Lucy knew better. There was nothing remotely civil about Robert Methven, nor would there be in his revenge. It was not over.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY HAD NOT wanted to attend the wedding breakfast, but her father had, for once, been adamant.

“Methven has invited us,” he said firmly. “The least that we can do is support him. This way we minimize the scandal of your brother’s appalling behavior and ensure that there is no more bad blood between our families.”

So that was that. Lucy sat through the banquet fidgeting as though her seat were covered in pine needles. She had no appetite. The food and drink turned to ashes in her mouth. She could barely swallow. She endured the gossip about Lachlan and the stares and the whispers with a bright and entirely artificial smile pinned on her face while inside, her stomach was curling with apprehension. She was seated a long way down the table from Robert Methven, but she could feel him looking at her, feel the heat of his gaze and sense the way he was studying her. Yet when she risked a glance in his direction, he was always looking the other way and paying her no attention at all. It could only be her guilt that was making her feel so on edge.

The meal ended and the dancing began. By now the wedding guests were extremely merry because the wine had circulated lavishly. Dulcibella’s elopement with the wrong bridegroom had almost been forgotten.

“Damned fine celebration,” Lucy heard one inebriated peer slur to another. “Best wedding of the year.”

Lucy sat with her godmother and the other chaperones, awkward and alone on one of the rout chairs at the side of the great hall of Brodrie Castle. Lucy hated the fact that at four and twenty she was still required to have a chaperone simply because she was not married. It was ridiculous. She knew it was society’s rule, but nevertheless it made her feel as though she were still a child. And since she had no intention of marrying, she could foresee the dismal prospect of being chaperoned until she was old enough to be a fully fledged spinster of thirty-five years at least.

She was desperate for this interminable party to end, but it seemed she was the only one who felt that way. Everyone else was having a marvelous time. She could see her sister Mairi twirling enthusiastically through the reel. Mairi always danced. She was an extrovert by nature. Some said she was a flifrt. No one said that of Lucy. She was considered too serious, too well behaved, and the tragedy of her dead fiancé had added a touch of melancholy to her reputation.

Her sister Christina was also dancing. Christina was not a flirt. She was firmly on the shelf, companion to their father, housekeeper and hostess, destined never to wed. Yet despite that, she was dancing while Lucy sat alone with the other wallflowers. It was a state of affairs that happened with increasing frequency over the past couple of years. Lucy knew she had a reputation for being fastidious because she had rejected so many suitors. The gentlemen had given up trying, swearing they could not live up to the memory of the late, sainted Lord MacGillivray. If only they knew. If only they knew that no one could measure up because no other bridegroom would accept a marriage in name only.

Intimacy with a man was out of the question for Lucy. She was not going to make the same mistake as Alice. She had to protect herself. That was why Duncan MacGillivray had been her ideal; he had had absolutely no desire to bed her. He had an heir, he had a spare and he had no interest in sex.

Lucy’s gaze wandered back to the dance. Mairi was spinning down the set of a country dance, passing from hand to hand, slender, smiling, a bright dazzling figure. Lucy felt a curious ache in her chest. Sometimes Mairi reminded her of Alice, radiant, charming, glowing with happiness. Lucy’s twin had had an exasperating habit of hearing only what she wanted to hear, of ignoring trouble with a blithe indifference and of charming her way out of difficulties. But in the end the trouble was so deep there was no way out. Lucy shivered. The stone pillars and baronial grandness of the great hall dissolved into another time, another place, and Alice was clinging to her hands, her face wet with tears:

“Help me, Lucy! I’m so afraid....”

Lucy had wanted to help, but she had not known what to do. She had been sixteen years old, shocked, terrified, helpless. Alice had held her so tightly it had hurt, words pouring from her in a broken whisper:

“I love him so much... I would do anything for him...” At the end she had called out for the man she loved, but he had not been there for her. Instead it had been Lucy who had held Alice as she had slipped away, as she had whispered how she was sorry, how she wished she had confided in Lucy before.

“I never told because I was afraid I would be in trouble. Please don’t tell anyone, Lucy! Help me....”

By then it had been far, far too late to help Alice. Lucy had thought that they had had no secrets, but that was not true. On the terrible night that Alice had died, Lucy had found out just how much her twin had kept a secret from her and just how high was the price paid for love.

Lucy gave a violent shiver and the great hall came back into focus and the music was playing and the dancers still dancing and nothing had changed, but in her heart was the cold emptiness that always filled her when she remembered Alice.

Her godmother, Lady Kenton, was addressing her.

“We shall never get you a husband, Lucy, if no one even asks you to dance,” Lady Kenton said. “It is most frustrating.”

Unfortunately Lady Kenton deemed it her duty as Lucy’s godmother and the dearest friend of her late mother to find Lucy a man. Lucy had asked her not to bother, but Lady Kenton was keen, all the keener as the years slipped past.

“I shall speak to your father about your marriage,” her godmother was saying. “He has been most remiss in letting matters slide since Lord MacGillivray’s death. It is time we found you another suitor.”