Moreover, he flatly refused to reside in the same building as Celeste.
That was the single part of it Piper had truly understood. Even at twelve years of age. She hadn’t blamed him one bit for that, and in all honesty, envied him the option.
At first, not much changed beyond her residence, even when her mother had remarried to Sedmouth with scandalous haste. As they were mere blocks from one another in London, her brother continued to visit her in the nursery daily. The promise on his lips to secure a wife so that Piper might rejoin his household. He shared his progress, and at one point, it seemed that the dream would come true. Then the lady in question had wed another and nothing had come of it. For five years, nothing had ever come of his efforts.
Until now.
Unfortunately, now was a couple of years too late. Harry might have finally returned to Dinton Grange and wed, but Piper’s reasons for hiding away from the world and from him continued unabated.
Pity they couldn’t vanish as abruptly as he.
That pity reflected in Jane’s gaze now. “He also approached me at Hyde Park. He seemed rather desperate. I expect he truly cares, dearest. Rumor has it, he’s been searching for you all this time.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then you’re a fool, Piper.” Her friend’s tone was sharper than she’d ever heard. “And a fool to keep running and hiding when you might trust in your brother to help you fix your problems.”
That was the issue, really. Piper wasn’t entirely convinced that she could.
Chapter 2
A duchess but at what cost? I fear what Mother will do if I further prevent her from obtaining the title. Harry, please come soon. I am desperate for your help.
~ from the correspondence of Piper Brudenall, Dec 1892
Sugary bliss assailed Piper’s senses as she strolled into the kitchen at Dinton Grange later that afternoon. Jane’s visit left her restless and discontent in her own company. The need to quiet her mind compelled her to the bustling kitchen and the myriad of distractions that might be found there. The aroma of baked treats hanging in the warm air was a pleasant one to be sure. Though she’d been welcomed by similar scents a thousand times in her life, there was something different about this one.
She peered over the cook’s shoulder with an appreciative sniff. “Something smells heavenly.”
“Oh!” The cook gasped in surprise and patted a hand against her generous bosom. A pair of maids stirring pots at the stove giggled at the sight, as did Piper. “Gracious, child, what are you doing here?”
“Where else would I be?” She hugged the woman’s shoulder affectionately, then reached for one of the sugarcoated treats that roused an insistent grumble in her stomach, only to have her hand slapped away. “What are you making, Hilde?”
“Shortbread, ‘tis a Scottish treat.”
Quick as a fox, Piper nabbed one of the warm biscuits from the plate and took a nibble with a blissful sigh.
Scooting her bum onto the work table, she ate her cookie and swung her legs as she watched Hilde roll out another batch of dough for baking. In the past two and a half years, she’d spent many a day doing much the same or even working at the cook’s side. She’d missed being here of late. Another reason to celebrate, rather than regret, her brother’s departure.
For all the time she’d spent in her brother’s or Jane’s company while growing up, she’d spent even more here. In the kitchens where no proper young miss should have been allowed to linger. Beyond Jane, her closest friends could be found within these walls. To the last, they were more loyal to her than they were the actual lady of the house. They’d proven that loyalty by sheltering her when she’d fled London and the impossible situation that confronted her there. Since then, they’d become more than friends. They were her family.
“I didn’t see you at the wedding, child,” Hilde admonished softly as she cut the dough into tidy rectangles and arranged them on a baking sheet. “I thought you said you’d come.”
“I said I would consider it.” Piper popped the rest of the biscuit into her mouth, though it tasted of ash now. She was in no mood to be berated for her absence for the second time today. Even by the woman who was far more a mother to her than her own. “Was it very lovely?”
The question escaped her in a whisper before she could call it back. The question she’d forgotten to ask of Jane.
With a soft harrumph, Hilde called for one of the maids and handed off the full tray to be put in the oven. Taking one of the freshly baked cookies for herself, she turned to Piper with a frown. “Yes, it was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Not a dry eye to be found. Your brother is quite in love.”
“I heard.” From the handsome stranger she’d encountered at the church door where she’d lingered and fretted about going in. That is, before the instinct for flight defeated fight.
“Kind of his lordship to invite the staff along.” Hilde pointed her shortbread at Piper in the same manner her tutor had once reprimanded her with a ruler. “Then again, he’s a kind man, as you’d know well enough if you’d come to see him while he was here.”
“You could tell him I’m here,” she reminded the cook. “Any of you could at any time.”
“Isn’t my place to do so. It’s yours,” Hilde grumbled. “About time, I’d say.”
“Please, let’s not discuss this today.” As with Jane, the subject had been raised at home more and more frequently as time passed. “I’ve been lonely these past few weeks.”
A rare admission.
“If you confronted his lordship, you’d have no reason to be lonely.”
As if her loneliness and isolation were her fault and no one else’s. More than two years had passed since she’d stopped hoping and praying that someone would rescue her. Two years since the threat that drove her into hiding presented itself. Had they all forgotten that the threat to her persisted?
Hilde held out another warm biscuit. Piper took it.
Scottish shortbread. Harry’s wife was Scottish, but she wasn’t here any longer.
“Why bother making a Scottish sweet when my brother and his wife are gone?”
* * *
“Would ye inform Mrs. Davies I plan to be back for supper, Bram?” Connor saddled his horse while the freckle-faced groom stood fidgeting nearby, clearly ruffled by Connor’s continued insistence that he could saddle his own mount, even after weeks of similar encounters. “Nae need to make a fuss. I can take my meal in the kitchen.”
The boy appeared aghast at the suggestion prompting Connor to modify the request. “Or in my rooms.”
Bram touched his ginger forelock with a sigh. “Aye, m’lord.”
“I’m no’ a lord, lad,” Connor reminded him.
“Aye, m’lord. So you said.” The boy nodded.
Connor shook his head with a chuckle, wondering how long it would take before his habit of caring for his own horse and his preferred address would become commonplace among the staff here. Although Dinton Grange was an estate fit for a king, as was his clan’s home in Scotland, it had never suited him to be treated like one. Especially when he was the only one in residence.
“Are you going far, m’lord?”
“I’m no’…” He sighed. “No’ far. I want to get the lay of the land before work begins.”
“Farmlands are to the south and east,” Bram told him. “Sure you won’t get lost?”
Giving the cinch one last tug, Connor hid a smile and led his chestnut gelding out into the stable yard. As he did, he spotted a woman coming down the graveled lane from the house. Each stride executed with a hoydenish flare that kicked out the hems of her long red skirts.
If they’d been a matador’s cape, his attention couldn’t have been more ensnared. Tall and willowy, with her sleek black hair reflecting the sun, she was about as bonny a lass as he’d seen in some time, despite her manly stride. She gazed all around her as she walked, taking in her surroundings and giving him a chance to appreciate her b
eauty from every angle.
Her familiar beauty, Connor thought, though he couldn’t immediately pinpoint where he’d seen her before.
At last her focus shifted ahead and she came up short at the sight of him. Stiffening, she pivoted on her heel and spun away from him in a swirl of skirts, only to turn about afresh and resume her original course. With a resolute set of her jaw, she called out, “My horse, Bram.”
“Aye, m’—er…,” the lad’s voice cracked. “Ma’am.”
The groom dashed off to the stable while the woman veered away to watch the stablemaster, who exercised a spirited dappled mare in the adjacent paddock. She rested her forearms on the top rung of the enclosure and a foot on the bottommost, greeting the man by name.
In the face of overwhelming curiosity, Connor knew his ride could wait a few moments longer.
Or was it the siren’s call that lured him?
How could any lover of beauty deny himself a moment to appreciate a masterpiece? Calling for one of the other grooms who stood by watching the training, Connor passed his reins off then joined her at the fence. With a foot on the lowest rung, he crossed his arms on the highest just as she had. The lass didn’t spare him a glance.
“I wisnae aware we had visitors remaining at the Grange.” Her shoulders squared against the fitted jacket of her habit. “Allow me to introduce myself. Connor MacKintosh. My sister, Fiona, is the new lady of the house.”
Silence. Her profile was worthy of national currency with her high forehead, slightly upturned nose, and stubborn chin. Long black eyelashes softened the classical lines. Her flawless porcelain complexion stood in stark contrast to the arcing slash of her brows and lush cherry lips. He wished she would look at him; instead, her eyes followed the circling mare with studied concentration. He might well have not spoken aloud.
“And ye are?” he prompted.
Her shoulders slumped. “Lillian Milbourne. Mrs. Milbourne.”
The name fell from her lips with ease yet he couldn’t help but feel the words rang false. She didn’t seem at all withdrawing enough to be compared to a lily. Or at least she hadn’t moments before.
Though the stablemaster continued to circle the mare about the enclosure on a longeing lead and the other grooms carried on with their currying and shit shoveling, Connor had the sense that all eyes were on them. Watchful and protective. As Lewis Carroll had once written so poetically, curiouser and curiouser.
“What brings ye to Dinton Grange today, Mrs. Milbourne?”
The mare took a full rotation around the paddock before she deigned to answer. “I was merely visiting a friend.”
“Visiting whom, may I ask?”
With all the wedding guests gone, he couldn’t imagine who an obviously highborn lass would call upon. While he wasn’t well-schooled in the habits of ladies, he did know it was as unusual for one to call upon servants as it was for one to fetch her own horse from the stables. Not unheard of, though. He waited for clarification, but she didn’t answer.
Before he could ask something more, Bram led a saddled horse from the stable. The handsome palomino seemed as familiar to Connor as Mrs. Milbourne herself. She faced the lad with a smile that whipped Connor’s head around like a physical blow and left him just as breathless and dazed. Incredible, since the expression was one filled with relief and not even directed at him.
Beguiling, bewitching. He could do no more than stare after her as she walked past him.
“Thank you, Bram. A foot up, if you please?”
“Allow me,” Connor recovered himself enough to offer.
She faced him then, wide eyes of vivid sapphire sparkling in the sunlight, and recognition struck. When last he’d seen her outside the church on his sister’s wedding day, she’d been drenched in mourning black. From the massive hat on her head to the tips of her toes. He’d been left as dumbstruck at the sight of her that day as he was now.
“Och, ye’re a far more bonny sight in red than ye are in black, Mrs. Milbourne.”
Something akin to panic flashed in her eyes before she collected herself. Obviously, she hadn’t anticipated being recognized. Another mark on the tally of the mystery of her. He did nothing more to address it. Rather, he stared at her as she did him, a becoming blush coloring her cheeks.
“May I?” he asked gruffly.
She blinked, inky lashes a splash of contrast fanned over her cheeks. “Thank you.”
Settling her foot in his cupped hands, she let him toss her up into the saddle, where she positioned her leg over the pommel with practiced ease and gathered her reins. There was no groom waiting to accompany her, nor did any of the stable lads act as though they intended to.
“I see ye have nae groom to escort ye home. Might I have the honor?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Her tone was firm. “I don’t live far. That is, I’m familiar with the area.”
She spurred her horse into motion, and he watched as she set out. Not down the lane toward the main drive, but along a graveled path heading northward toward the dairy. A gentleman would let her be when she clearly had no desire for his company. To the contrary, a gentleman wouldn’t let a young lady, widow or not, travel alone. Since that edict better suited him at the moment, Connor retrieved his horse and shoved his foot into the stirrup. He heaved himself up…
And dropped in an arcing sweep until his arse, shoulders, and head smacked against the hard dirt while his booted foot hung from the stirrup now dangling below the horse’s belly.
“What the hell?”
The groom who’d been holding his reins clucked his tongue with a shake of his head. “You must not have had the cinch tight, eh, m’lord?”
Connor wrenched his foot free and climbed to his feet, dusting off his coat and trousers…and testing the welfare of his ankle that had been twisted in the tumble. A wince and scowl fought for rights on his brow, the glower triumphant in the end as he directed it toward the groom, who responded with a guileless smile. The bloody cinch had been tight, that much was certain.
Peering down the trail, he saw that Mrs. Milbourne had disappeared from sight. Evidently, she hadn’t a whit of interest in him or his welfare. What wasn’t obvious was why the groom had been set on assuring Connor didn’t follow the lass. He could try to catch up with her, ask her himself. Given the twists and turns of the narrow lanes across the property, the effort would most likely come to naught. She was long gone by now.
Connor shot a glare at the groom, considering whether he could browbeat a confession of her whereabouts from him. “What is yer name?”
The groom didn’t quail under his notice, rather he squared his shoulders and met Connor’s unflinching scrutiny. “Albert, m’lord.”
“How long have ye been a groom here, Albert?”
“Been working for the marquis and the previous one for nigh on a score of years or more, m’lord. Since I was a lad.”
Twenty years or more, the man likely knew every resident within a radius of as many miles. There was little doubt in Connor’s mind that the groom—all of them, given their avid audience—knew exactly who the woman was and where he might find her. Yet any man willing to risk his lifelong livelihood to do what Albert had done wouldn’t be the sort to yield under pressure.
Perhaps he’d recommend to the marquis that the man be sacked. Of course, then he’d have to explain why.
That he’d been as taken by the second glance of a woman as he had by the first. His sister would laugh herself to tears and take it upon herself to share—and exacerbate—his interest with the entire family. There’d be no end to the humiliations then. The MacKintosh clan did enjoy a good chuckle at a sibling’s expense. Especially when it came to matters of the heart. Connor would know. He’d been on the other end of that game plenty of times.
With a low curse, he tossed the reins back to the groom. “Rub him down and coddle him within an inch of his life to make reparation for yer egregious treatment of him.”
Of us both, he silently amended.
Albert tapped the brim of his flat cap without remorse. “Aye, m’lord.”
“I’m no’ a bloody lord!”
Connor tramped back up the drive to the main house, resisting the urge to limp on his tender ankle or provide succor to his bruised arse until he was out of sight. Woodlands surrounded the house in every direction. Sparse in some areas but growing more dense right along the perimeter of the building and gardens. They were intended to prevent such unsightly things as stables, outbuildings, and crops from impairing the scenic views from the manor, whether one viewed them from the lawns or from the windows of the highest turret. A tunnel of low-hanging branches formed by a thick cropping of English oak and birch cast the drive in shadows before he emerged near the east wing of the house.
Around the edge of the building, he could see the long expanse of the parterre that extended from the rear of the house. Lush, tailored lawns lined by ornamental flower beds. An enormous and hideously gauche fountain marked the far end. The graveled lane he walked upon merged into the drive at the front of the house. Two long avenues branched off perpendicular to the ends of the manor and ran parallel to one another down an equally long approach to his left. Within its confines, an intricate, geometrically precise garden of fastidiously trimmed hedgerows and flowering shrubs radiated from a more sedate marble fountain at the center. All of it meant to awe and impress visitors with an unimpeded vista of the manor as they traveled up the avenue.
None of it suited him. He far preferred the natural, entangled gardens at Glen Cairn Manor. Wild flowers mixed with roses. Herbs and vegetables. Functionality and beauty blended together. Lawns far less pristine, where family games and children at play marked them with life. All Connor saw when he viewed the grounds were the hours of manpower needed to maintain them. Manpower that could be put to better use growing things far more practical.
Perhaps there would be time to consider the options, however, it wasn’t agriculture that interested him at the moment. Nay, it was a confounding lass in red.
A Question for the Ages (Questions for a Highlander Book 7) Page 3
