by Eliza Knight
What in blazes about the soggy, dirty lass made him feel like such an imbecile? He’d lost his mind. He was certain.
And now he’d have to go back downstairs and be subjected to all of the questions from the larger-than-his-mother-promised crowd. At least he had his friends to chat with once he was amid the hungry females. But first, he needed a few moments alone to change his clothes. His mother would have his head if he showed up in the drawing room with his shirt wrinkled and smeared with Lady Giselle’s muck.
On his way, he informed his butler that the staff was not to say that Giselle was there if anyone came knocking. Additionally, her horse was to be returned to Boddam Castle, riderless and without any message. Perhaps the mystery of her disappearance would keep that household looking for her for a few days, her and allow Giselle a moment of peace before the inevitable hell broke out.
“What in the world happened? Do no’ leave out a single detail,” Jaime demanded as she took in the mess that was Giselle’s person.
With a hand balanced on the edge of the tub, Giselle glanced down at herself. The once pretty dress was streaked with mud and torn. It looked as if she’d done battle with a mud monster.
A tired sigh escaped her, and she shrugged. “My parents, my betrothed, a storm—the Beast of Hay.”
Jaime frowned. “The Beast of Hay?”
“A little nickname I’ve grown quite fond of.” Giselle laughed at how he’d bristled, though he was not entirely angry. She thought he might like it.
“For Alec?”
“Aye. He is so broody and beastlike. I needed to tease him a bit.”
Jaime laughed. “If ye say so. Tell me, though, what happened? Ye told me ye were headed north, but…”
“Well, ye know what I’ve been dealing with in regard to Sir Joshua.”
“Aye.” Jaime frowned.
“There seemed nothing for it but to run.” She told her friend about all that had occurred up until the moment they’d made their way into Slains.
“Goodness.” Jaime pulled her in for a gentle hug, though taking care not to let her gown touch Giselle’s soiled one. “Ye’ve been through a time of it and deserve the chance for a respite. How long do ye think ye’ve got before they arrive looking for ye?”
“I hope at least the night.”
Several maids swept in then, along with lads carrying steaming buckets of water for the tub. They sprinkled dried flowers and herbs into the hot water, and Giselle was practically trembling with the need to get inside.
“I’ll return shortly with a gown,” Jaime said. “I know the perfect one.”
“Please tell me ’tis no’ yellow or brown. I’ve had quite enough with the combination of colors today.”
Jaime laughed. “Neither. A verra pretty lavender, and I think it will look delightful on ye with your golden hair.”
While Jaime went to fetch the gown, Giselle lifted her arms and ignored the tutting of the maids at her destroyed gown and the streaks of mud that somehow had leached their way through all her layers to languish on her skin.
All of her worries seemed to melt away as she sank into the steaming, fragrant water. The chill to her bones evaporated, and she closed her eyes, allowing the maids to wash the mud from her hair and scrub her skin until it tingled. She was already starting to feel more like herself.
As they worked, her mind drifted to Alec Hay. The way he seemed almost possessive of her when he held her, whisking her up the stairs of his great castle. It was practically romantic. Surprising, really. More surprising was the way her belly fluttered at the thought. In the years she’d spent being paraded in front of potential grooms, none had elicited that kind of response.
Soon, with skin pinkened and pruned by the tub, Giselle was wrapped in a thick robe and set before the hearth as the maids brushed and dried her hair by the fire, trying to make sense of the mangled curls. A soft knock preceded Jaime’s arrival, who came bearing the lovely lavender gown and slippers.
“Sorry, it took me a few minutes. I was...distracted.” Jaime’s cheeks were flushed with color, and she avoided Giselle’s gaze.
“What distracted ye? Was it the horde downstairs who can’t wait to get their claws in me?”
Jaime licked her lips, which looked a wee bit swollen and shook her head.
“Oh, my,” Giselle said, dawning understanding. “Was the distraction your duke?”
More color came to Jaime’s face, confirming that she had indeed been held up by her husband, no doubt in the type of scandalous embrace that would make most maidens shy away. Well, Giselle supposed it wasn’t that scandalous for a husband and wife to kiss with passion, but in the middle of the day, in the middle of a party?
“Oh, Jaime, ye naughty minx.”
Jaime laughed softly, checking her chestnut hair in the looking glass. “Ye’re one to talk, showing up looking ravaged in the arms of a man who has no’ so much as looked at a woman since returning from the war.”
Giselle stood as the maids dressed her. “Why do ye think that is? The lack of women? He’s certainly handsome enough.”
Jaime raised a brow. “Aye, but we’d be in the minority for thinking it.”
“How so?” Giselle cocked her head, confused. Alec was a man worthy of art.
“From what he’s told Lorne, the majority of the women who look at him run screaming.”
“Screaming?” Giselle frowned. “He might be beastly, but he’s no’ that beastly.”
“I quite agree.” Jaime set the hose and slippers on the bed beside a necklace.
“What could they find that is off-putting about him?”
Jaime shrugged. “I think the scar?”
Giselle gaped. “Ye mean the idiots are balking at a battle wound he sustained while fighting for his country?”
“Aye,” Jaime drawled out the word, studying Giselle in earnest now.
“Well, I’ve a mind to go down there and tell them what I think of such ridiculous behavior.”
“No doubt ye’d give them a blistering they deserve. And no doubt one or all of them will figure out from whence ye came and summon your mother here to fetch ye.”
Giselle shuddered. “That can absolutely no’ happen.”
“So we shall perch ye pretty as ye please on a settee and keep the gossips away.”
“Perfect.”
When the maids brought out the hot tongs to curl her hair, Giselle waved them away. “A modest twist will do.” The tongs would take hours to tame this mess.
While she was here without her mother’s interference, she was going to wear her hair simply and comfortably, the way she liked it.
Staring into the looking glass, she gave a wide grin to Jaime, who stood behind her. “Ye can no’ imagine how pleased I am to see ye here,” Giselle said to her friend.
They’d been so close growing up. Knowing that upon arrival, she’d not be left alone by a bunch of intimidating strangers, had made her nerves settle. She’d been so pleased to lay eyes on her dearest friend in all the world.
Having an ally would make the short time she was here all the better. And perhaps Jaime would be able to help her figure out how to get out of the mess her parents had put her in.
“Good God, where did ye find her?” Lorne asked, cornering Alec by the sideboard when he returned to the parlor.
The guests were mingling in small circles, no doubt cliques they’d formed before arriving. Several young women stood by the window, conversing behind their fans as if the flimsy accessory would hide the tittering sound of their voice or the gaping expressions. Mothers circulated together around the various embroidered chairs, sipping tea and whispering, while the fathers seemed comfortable by the hearth, whiskies in hand.
As far as Alec was concerned, Lorne could ask him as many questions as he wanted, as long as it saved him from having to speak to any of the lasses that drooled and clawed in the corner, ready to pounce like a pack of wild cats. He stifled a shudder.
“I was out by the ruins when she too
k a tumble from her horse. Almost went over the edge. Damn near scared the wits out of me.” He’d been watching the landscape when lightning struck, and at first, he thought the woman on horseback racing down the road had been a figment of his imagination. But then the horse had reared, and he’d watched her grapple for balance. He’d started running then, knowing a panicked horse could mean a trampled rider. He’d not thought that she might go over the cliff. A last burst of energy from him had been enough to stop her from sliding.
Lorne shook his head and frowned. “Madness. I had no idea she was on her way to this little soiree. Would have thought she’d tell Jaime at least.”
“She was no’.” Alec lowered his voice, leaning in to be certain they were not overheard. “She was at Keith’s castle a few miles north of here. Bloody bastard somehow duped her parents into allowing him to marry her.”
“She’s his wife?” Lorne didn’t bother to hide his look of horror. “Last I heard, he’d proposed yet Lady Giselle was trying to get out of it. I never thought it would happen.”
Alec bristled at the thought of Keith being able to marry anyone decent, let alone a woman like Lady Giselle. “No’ yet. But a wedding was imminent.”
Lorne raised a brow. “Was?”
“She escaped.”
“Escaped? As in ran away from her wedding?”
“No’ quite—she ran away from the castle. That’s when I found her.”
Lorne blew out a long breath, and offered a glass of whisky to Alec. “What are ye going to do with her?”
“I do no’ know.” Alec took a long sip of whisky, then said, “I need a refill and so do ye.”
“Ye’re changing the subject.”
“Aye.”
Lorne chuckled. “Ye remember when I came into the club looking as if I’d come back from the dead, the suggestion ye made me?”
Alec frowned. He knew exactly what suggestion he’d made, and it wouldn’t work in this situation. “I’m no’ going to seduce her into wedding me. I do no’ want or need a wife. Nor did she swipe my property out from under me.”
Lorne chuckled and then glanced around the room. “I suppose ye could say ye do no’ want a wife, although another two decades of this type of gathering and ye might wish ye had no’ thought that way.”
Alec grimaced as he walked. He uncorked the decanter of whisky and poured himself another round and one for Lorne.
Their two friends, Euan Irvine and Malcolm Gordon, took that moment to enter the parlor, laughing at some unheard joke. Malcolm was Lorne’s cousin. They headed right for the sideboard. Sweat beaded their skin.
“Ye were in my gymnasium,” Alec accused. “Bastards. I wanted to challenge ye myself.”
They chuckled and clapped him on the back. “Almost as good as Lorne’s.”
“Is it true?” Euan asked, changing the subject and pinning Alec with a hard stare.
Alec feigned ignorance. “Is what true?”
Malcolm took Alec’s cup of whisky and drank heartily. “That ye dragged a fairy from the sea and brought her home with ye to irritate the dowager countess?”
“What in blazes are ye going on about?” Alec asked. If that was the rumor that was going about, his mother was sure to box his ears later.
But just then, his words caught in his throat as the doors to the drawing room opened, and his butler said in a loud and clear voice, “The Lady Giselle.” As instructed, he left off her surname.
However, the woman revealed standing just inside the doorway was not the same lady he’d rescued from a mudslide near the cliffs. Her golden hair was swept into a neat knot, with tendrils of curls framing her face—and all the while, he’d thought it brown. Her locks shone in the light from the lamps and looked softer than silk. Her cheeks were flushed, likely from all eyes that had turned on her. The lavender day gown she wore fit her like a glove but was perhaps a little tighter than should be at the chest, drawing his attention to her décolletage. Alec quickly averted his gaze when he felt his groin tighten at the beautiful picture she made.
Giselle’s gaze swept the room, her thick lashes coyly fluttering until she caught him staring, and then a slow, taunting grin formed on her lush pink mouth, nearly undoing him.
Bloody hell, he thought, at the same time Malcolm said, “Good God, she’s gorgeous.”
Knowing his friend appreciated the vision before them made Alec want to slug him. To demand that he did not look at her. She was beautiful. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And she knew it—must have from the way she teased the crowd with her blushing and fluttery lashes.
The echoing silence ended in a whoosh of whispers.
He wondered if beneath her gown, they’d see she balanced on one leg, for how otherwise could she be standing there. Was her ankle healed miraculously? A moment later, his question was partially answered when footmen settled on either side of her, their arms about her waist as they lifted her and carried her forward. She looked to be floating, the tips of her lavender slippers peeking from beneath the skirt.
The footmen settled her on a settee that Jaime pointed to. Her foot ought to be propped on a pillow, but that would likely send every female in the room into a fit of the vapors, and the men who were already panting might start salivating over her.
The room erupted into murmurs, and several ladies moved toward the new guest. His new guest. Alec wanted to rush in and rescue her from the crowd, but to do so would also put himself in the crowd, and he wanted to be far, far away from those high-pitched females cooing over Giselle at that very moment. Also, he didn’t want to act on the possessive impulses raging within himself. Aye, he found her attractive, intriguing even. But he was steadfast in his ideal to not marry, no matter what Lorne said.
Malcolm speared him with a look. “Are ye going to rescue her?”
“I’ve already done that.”
“A cliff seems preferable to that gaggle,” Euan said with a shudder.
“I am no’ the only eligible male here,” Alec pointed out to his friends, even if it pained him to admit it. “Perhaps I will start a rumor that the two of ye are interested.”
“I’d be interested in her,” Malcolm said with a wiggle of his brows and a roguish grin.
A wave of jealousy swept so hard over Alec that it nearly knocked him on his arse. That was an ugly emotion he’d not felt in ages. And he did not appreciate it rearing its head now.
“Well, what’s it going to be, Errol?” Lorne said in a challenge, nudging him in the ribs with his elbow. “Are ye going to claim the lass or allow one of the two bulls here to duke it out?”
A great pressure built in Alec’s head, pounding somewhere at the back of his skull. He took a sip of his whisky, hoping it would help alleviate the pain, but it only seemed to make things worse.
“I’m claiming her, but no’ for the reason ye think,” he said with a scowl. “She was Keith’s betrothed, and I want to dance on his grave, knowing I took what was his.”
“Och, do let us know how we can help ye with that,” Lorne said with an appreciative nod. “We all bloody hate that fellow.”
“None more than I.”
8
For a lass who preferred to spend most of her time with her head in a book, Giselle felt she was doing a reasonably good job of faking sociability right now. It probably helped that she had Jaime here with her and also that every time she glanced over at Alec, he appeared noticeably pained. She wasn’t sure she’d ever met anyone who felt as plainly as she did the physical ache of forced proximity to idiots.
But she didn’t have time to savor that thought longer than a breath, as the ladies in question were squeezing in around her and singing her gown’s praises, unaware that it was, in fact, Jaime’s dress she wore.
“Only ye could get away with a hairstyle so simple,” one of them said in mocking tones that grated on Giselle’s nerves. The wee wretch had not hidden her desire to inflict a wound.
“Oh, ye silly sausage,” Giselle quipped back with a fals
e laugh. “’Tis easy to get away with simple when ye have other attributes far more intriguing.” To this, she referred to her breasts, which she was certain would pop out if she took too deep a breath or laughed too loud.
The lass in question—Lady Mary, she thought she remembered hearing—looked taken aback by both the moniker and the pointed lack of her own swelling chest. It wasn’t nice, and Giselle felt instantly bad for having pointed out what was a source of self-consciousness. She wasn’t that type of person. Hated the drama that meanness pulled out. She meant only to defend herself, and it was stupid that she’d hurt someone else in doing so.
“I’m sorry,” Giselle said, startling all of the ladies in the group. “My ankle is smarting from my fall, and I should no’ have taken it out on ye.”
The lass sniffed the air, appeared ready to say something nasty when Jaime stepped in.
“Ye are a darling, Lady Giselle. We all understand, do we no’, Lady Mary? I’ve certainly been a bit snippy when stubbing a toe. I can no’ imagine how I’d be if I’d sprained my ankle the way ye did.” And just like that, the words of a duchess changed the course of the evening as all the ladies started to fawn over Giselle once more.
It paid to have a friend in high places, she supposed.
“Now, who wants to play a game?” Jaime asked, diverting the attention from Giselle, who mouthed a grateful, “Thank ye.”
Giselle did not want to play a game but given the excitement on the other lasses’ faces and her previous gaffe, it wouldn’t do to voice her concerns. Besides, Jaime was doing her best to take attention away from Giselle, and for that, she’d play a hundred games.
“We will play Bouts Rimes,” Jaime said.
Giselle cringed on the inside. The other lasses tittered their excitement. At least it was a game Giselle knew how to play but being put on the spot always seemed to make her mind go blank. Alone she could make up a thousand rhyming ditties, but faced with anyone, especially those she didn’t know…
“The words shall be…” Jaime pursed her lips as she thought about them, her warm brown eyes twinkling in Giselle’s direction. “And in this order: bores, party, moors, hearty, cures.”
