Mournful saints? “Ah,” she said. “That must be rewarding.”
“Yes, yes, it is.” He opened the coach door and handed her up. “You don’t read, do you?”
“Why?” she asked, suspicious at the way he’d couched the question.
“It’s a horrid habit, you know.” He sat beside her, leaving Jane to climb up on her own and claim the opposite seat. “Reading. Spending the day with your chin lowered is very unflattering to the neck. I’ve heard that it invites sagging skin. And you have a fine neck.”
“Thank you.”
She’d once fancied herself marrying this man. Knowing him, though, gave her an entirely different opinion of the Marquis of Hurst. A month ago she might have been weighing what she was willing to give up in order to earn herself an escape from Baxter House, as she’d done with Coll’s supposed suit. Reading? Smiling, apparently? And she’d had no idea that she had a frivolous hair color.
What she did have was someone with whom to compare the marquis. Someone who asked her questions rather than making pronouncements, assumed she would be interesting and well read, and who enjoyed both laughter and making her smile in return.
Lionel delivered them to Baxter House, promising once more to call on her to take her to luncheon tomorrow, and to bring one of his sketches for her to admire. As he drove away, Jane gripped her arm. “I know what all that skellum talk meant,” she murmured, walking through the foyer and toward the library. “Have you considered what you’re doing?”
Drat. “Jane, you heard Lord Hurst. Am I supposed to marry that?”
“And if you don’t?”
Amelia-Rose leaned into the library. Finding it empty, she pulled Jane inside and closed them in. “Explain yourself. And if you mean to tell my mother what happened today, I will—”
“Yes, you won’t be happy. I know.”
“Jane.”
“Amelia-Rose, at this moment you have two men. One who offers you excitement, and one who offers you acceptance. Yes, Lord Hurst is a bit less … cerebral than I expected, given his appearance, but he is well respected. It is a good match. You’ll have those things you’ve been lamenting about since before your parents spoke with Lady Aldriss. You will also have a mother who is pleased and proud of you.”
“But Niall—”
“Yes, Mr. MacTaggert is a force of nature. Heaven knows if he looked at me the way he looks at you, I might well have fallen for him, myself. He is also a youngest son, dependent on his mother for his income and standing, because he has no reputation here at all except for being a barbarian Highlander. He may have promised you a Season in London, but that still leaves another nine months of the year in Scotland. Living in a house, I assume, with his bachelor brothers and his English-hating father.”
After what he’d spoken about the night before last, that prospect seemed much less dire. London was a delicate spiderweb of social engagements, where one misstep could cause one to fall forever out of favor. The idea of a community, of being able to help guide a young man or lady toward a better future than they might find on their own, or of teaching someone to read—that had a mighty appeal.
“What do you suggest, then, for heaven’s sake?” she asked aloud anyway, because Jane would expect it.
“I suggest, cousin, that you stop weighing what you’re willing to give up, and see who most closely gives you what you want. And then keep your window locked.”
With that Jane left the room. Amelia-Rose went to sit in one of the deep windowsills that overlooked the tiny Baxter House garden. Her cousin’s rather wise advice surprised her; for too long she’d thought of Jane as a necessary evil, a dour presence meant to help keep her from misbehaving.
Was that what it came down to? Giving up her status or giving up her happiness? It didn’t seem that she could have both. So would being with Niall continue to make her happy? When she faced those nine months a year in the Highlands without the friends and parties with which she was familiar, when it rained for days and days on end, would she still be happy?
Oh, this was so complicated. The problem with dreams, she was beginning to realize, was that they only made sense when one’s eyes were closed. In the light of day they were as fragile and fleeting as clouds. And she couldn’t wager the rest of her life on a cloud.
Chapter Fifteen
Niall crouched beneath a stand of ferns, his gaze on Baxter House above him. The bastard Hurst had appeared about seven o’clock and had stayed until nearly midnight. Aden had ridden by once, but Niall wasn’t about to pop out of the shrubbery and announce his location to anyone.
His legs were stiff, even though he’d spent longer hours waiting for a buck to cross his trail. More significantly, the apple and trio of biscuits he’d stolen from the Oswell House kitchen were long gone and he was damned hungry.
The downstairs lamps began going out in succession, and he shifted a little. The windows of Amelia-Rose’s bedchamber remained lit, as did the one beside it. She might have left the light on for him, but he doubted it. Either she wasn’t in there yet, or someone was in there with her.
Finally her light went out, and then the one in the neighboring room. Niall waited for a late coach to rumble by, then straightened and made his way to the front door. He put a foot on the large pot holding some sort of flowers, then jumped up, catching the eave of the portico with his fingers.
Hauling himself up, he moved from there to the narrow windowsill beside it, then the decorative fleur-de-lis and the next window. If his reach had been any shorter he would have had to try shimmying up the drainpipe instead, but without much effort he traversed the next pair of windows until he reached Amelia-Rose’s. Bracing himself in the tiny corner of the window, he found the bottom of the catch and pushed up.
It didn’t budge.
Niall frowned. He pulled on the bottom of the window. Nothing. The curtains on the other side were shut, and he couldn’t make out any movement, any light, beyond them. She didn’t even have the fireplace lit tonight. Taking a breath, he rapped a knuckle softly against the glass.
Silence answered him. “Damn it, lass,” he muttered, and knocked again, a little louder.
The window to the next room down squeaked open. He tried to flatten himself against the wall, but there wasn’t anywhere he could go. Just as he contemplated dropping into the flower bed below, a dark-haired head and tight bun emerged into the night.
“She isn’t in there,” Jane Bansil whispered. “Lord Hurst told my aunt about your meeting on Bond Street, I was sent upstairs without dinner for not telling her, and she moved Amelia-Rose to the interior of the house in the bedchamber directly beside hers.”
“I need to talk with ye, then,” Niall decided, shifting his weight and starting back along the wall.
“No, you don’t,” she hissed. “I will not have my reputation compromised.”
“At least tell me if a wedding date’s been set, lass,” he countered, slowing his approach so she wouldn’t begin throwing things at him.
“Yes. Three weeks from tomorrow. Lord Hurst sent for a special license this afternoon.”
Cold stabbed into him. “She doesnae want this, ye ken.”
Jane opened and closed her mouth. “I know that. She adores you. You make her smile. But you won’t make her a marchioness.”
“Nae, I willnae.” He reached her window, gripping the top of the sill. “If I cannae see her, will ye give her this?” Niall dug into his coat pocket and produced a dried thistle flower on a short stem. He’d brought it south with him on a whim, pressed between the pages of an old book. At the time he’d had no idea why, except that a thistle was the Highlands, and he was leaving them for a time. Now it represented him, and he wanted Amelia-Rose to know that she wasn’t alone.
The companion backed inside a little, as if she feared he would try to yank her outside. “You need to stop making trouble, Mr. MacTaggert.”
“The only trouble is the lot of ye trying to stop Amelia-Rose and me.” He took a breath. �
�I cannae see my life without her in it. Do ye reckon Lord Hurst could say the same?”
Scowling, glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to be discovered at any moment, she reached out and snatched the thistle from his fingers. “I am not promising you anything. The decision is hers.”
“Aye. It’s always been hers.”
With that she closed the window, nearly flattening his fingers before he moved them. This wasn’t the damned evening he’d wanted. There was supposed to have been more sex, the two of them deciding on the plan he’d concocted this evening, and him holding her for as many hours as they could fit in before the sun rose.
Slowly he made his way back to the portico roof and dropped to the ground. He might have told Jane what he meant to do, but while he didn’t doubt the companion cared for her charge, he had no idea if Jane’s idea of protecting her would mean tattling about everything to Mrs. Baxter and stopping them before they’d even begun.
Staying in the shadows, he made his way up the street to the inn where’d he’d left Kelpie. Loki stood beside the bay, and he turned around just in time to block his brother from grabbing him. “Enough, Aden.”
Aden lowered his arms. “We told ye nae to go off alone. But if ye’re back here already, ye’re doing someaught wrong.”
“They moved her to a different room,” he grunted, freeing the reins and swinging up into the gelding’s saddle.
“So she doesnae know what ye’re about?”
“Nae.”
“That makes this all a bit more dangerous, ye ken,” his brother returned, mounting beside him.
“If ye’re scared, I’ll take care of it myself,” Niall retorted.
“Nae dangerous for me, ye clod. Dangerous for ye.”
Niall shrugged. “She’s worth it.”
Aden fell in beside him as they made their way back to Oswell House. “I’d make fun of ye for how moon-eyed ye are all of a sudden, but I dunnae want to risk a black eye while I’m after a wife.”
“I’d risk it.” On Niall’s far side Coll trotted into the dim lamplight. “Ye kept us out here for four hours looking for ye, ye lummox.”
“If there was a way to reason with the Baxters, I’d do it. If ye can think of something I’ve missed, for God’s sake tell me.”
The three of them rode in silence up the nearly deserted street. “I ken that ye’re about to make enemies of yer in-laws,” Coll finally said, his breath frosting in the night air. “And I ken that that doesnae sit well with ye. The way I see it, someone’s going to get hurt here. They’ve pushed it that way. It can be ye, or it can be them.”
“Aye,” Aden agreed. “Ye’ve tried negotiating. Ye’ve tried making friends. Stick yer hand in the bear’s mouth often enough, eventually he’ll bite ye.”
Niall had to agree with that. “What ye dunnae see in yer metaphor, Aden,” he returned, “is that I’m the bear.”
This was one bloody bear who was tired of being polite and affable. He wanted Amelia-Rose. And tomorrow she would be the only one who could stop him from taking her.
He went up to bed when they arrived back at Oswell House, but he might as well have saved himself the trouble. Twice he nearly left the house again to make another attempt to see Amelia-Rose, but he talked himself out of it. He’d done what he could. If Jane wagged her tongue about his appearance, the Baxters would consider themselves wise to have moved their daughter out of his grasp, but they would have no idea of anything else in the offing.
Even if Miss Bansil spoke only to Amelia-Rose, neither of them knew what he’d planned—only that he had something in mind. But if he went out again and they caught him, he had a good chance of spending the next three weeks in Old Bailey, and that would be too late to fix anything.
Rising before dawn, he belted on his kilt and headed downstairs to find some breakfast. The footmen were just setting out the first toast and boiled eggs, but then the rest of the family likely wouldn’t be rising until midmorning. He hoped they wouldn’t be, anyway. He didn’t need anyone trying to talk him out of anything or trying to convince him to think of his reputation.
His own reputation didn’t concern him. Amelia-Rose, though, was going to have to make a decision. And since he hadn’t seen her last night, she was going to have to make it without the benefit of hours of consideration, of weighing the benefits against the storm that would likely follow.
“I thought I might find you here.” Francesca strolled into the morning room, selected a slice of toast and some butter, then sat beside him to pour herself a cup of tea.
Niall closed his eyes for a moment. “I dunnae want to hear that I’m being rash or nae thinking things through.”
Carefully she dropped two lumps of sugar into her teacup and stirred it. “Did you tell Amelia-Rose that if you two married, you would spend the Seasons in London?”
“Aye.”
“And you meant it?”
With a frown he cracked another egg in its ridiculous wee cup and downed half of it. “Of course I meant it. She likes London.”
“I have … overheard a few things, aside from what you deigned to tell me regarding Lord Hurst, and I do wonder if you’ve asked yourself how Miss Baxter might feel about your plans. Unless you’ve told her, of course.”
Niall hadn’t told his mother about them, either. Not all of them. “I tried. Couldnae get to her without setting Baxter House on fire.”
“Ah. Thank you for not doing that, then.”
Smythe walked in, deposited a fresh, wrinkle-free newspaper at Lady Aldriss’s elbow, and then exited again. None of the servants were lingering this morning, Niall noted belatedly. His mother’s doing, no doubt. No witnesses.
“I’ve nae a thing to say to ye,” he commented into the silence. “Ye’d be better off claiming ye’d no idea what was afoot, anyway.”
“When your brothers or your father tell or ask something of you that perhaps you would be better off not doing,” she returned, still stirring her tea, “do you hesitate?”
With a grimace, he finished off the egg. “Nae. I do more often than nae end up with a black eye or someaught, though. And I’m nae asking ye for a thing.”
She reached over, putting her hand over his. “You are my son. I was apart from you for a very long time, but I am here now. As I told you before, I will do whatever I am able to help you.”
“I honestly dunnae know what that might be, màthair. Ye’re looking the other way for some of it, already, and I reckon that’ll be hard enough for ye to maneuver around in yer clever drawing room conversations. The deed, and the consequences, are mine. And Amelia-Rose’s.” That last bit was what worried him the most; not that she didn’t love him, but that he meant to challenge the one thing that could well mean more to her than he did.
“Don’t you fret over me and my clever drawing room conversations,” she retorted. “I am a very experienced duelist.”
“Good.” Niall pushed away from the table. “I’ll wander back by when they’ve put out actual food.”
“You’re not going anywhere yet, are you?”
Whatever he might have thought about Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert, he couldn’t mistake the genuine concern in her voice. “Nae. I reckon I’ll be about until midmorning.”
Francesca watched him out of the breakfast room. He looked tired, worried, and very, very serious. While she hadn’t yet been able to discover every detail of his plan—which she meant to do, posthaste—she knew enough to wish again that he hadn’t stopped her from negotiating a new agreement with the Baxters. Amelia-Rose would have been angry, but when he won her heart he would have been able to claim the rest of her, as well.
The consequences he’d mentioned would be serious, indeed. She didn’t wish them on anyone, much less her own son. The nastiness would interfere with her entire reason for deciding to enforce her agreement with Angus in the first place—to have her sons back in her life.
Sipping at her too-sweet tea, she opened the paper to the social announcements—and se
t her cup on the table so hard the tea sloshed out. Damn Smythe for not saying something about this, though he frequently had John the footman iron the newspaper in the mornings, and she had a suspicion that the young man couldn’t read.
Glancing toward the empty doorway, she lifted the paper so anyone walking by wouldn’t know what might have caught her attention. The announcement was small, but not unusually so, with an elaborate spray of flowers across the top and the bottom. It seemed Mr. and Mrs. Charles Baxter were delighted to announce the engagement of their only daughter, Miss Amelia-Rose Hyacinth Baxter, to Lionel Albert West, the Marquis of Hurst. The little script at the bottom, which read Hearts Entwined, made her scowl.
They hadn’t wasted any time. And with the announcement, anyone who hadn’t already heard now knew that Amelia-Rose had found her title. In her eyes, at least, the inclusion of the quotation only pointed out the fact that love had had nothing to do with the match whatsoever.
Francesca debated whether to tell Niall that the official announcement had been made. He knew about the engagement; seeing it in bold black print wouldn’t change what he meant to do. It would, though, alert him about just how many other people had hold of the same information.
First she rang for Smythe, wiped up her spilled tea with a napkin, and went to find some writing paper. She hadn’t been jesting about her skill in maneuvering through London Society. Now seemed to be the perfect time to make use of those abilities.
* * *
“Nae. Make it fluffier.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes, giving the cravat a close stare. “If I make it fluffier, ye’ll nae be able to see over it.”
Turning to face the dressing mirror, Niall looked at his reflection again. His shirt points weren’t quite high enough to make him a dandy, but he looked far fancier than he could ever recall. A green coat so tight he could barely lift his arms, a gray-and-yellow-striped waistcoat that could likely be seen even in pitch-black darkness, a damned white waterfall beneath his neck, gray trousers without space for a single damned pocket, and Hessian boots poor Oscar had spent half the night polishing almost to mirror perfection. “I look like a nightmare.”
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