How to Train Your Highlander

by Christy English

  “Open it, girl. Don’t be missish.”

  Mary Elizabeth shot a glare at the other woman, duchess or no, but she did pry open her mother’s seal, a band of heather with a buck’s horns inside it. The missive contained no greeting, no salutation, and no signature. It held only one line, terse but to the point.

  If you can’t bring the duke to offer for you, I shall.

  Mary Elizabeth felt the sting of the one-line note as if it were a slap on her cheek. Her appetite gone, she rose to her feet before the footman standing by could even pull out her chair.

  “Your mother is on her way here,” the duchess said, eyeing Mary with something that looked like sympathy. “It seems she has decided to no longer leave your matchmaking to others and is coming to see to it herself.”

  “My mother prefers her own opinions to anyone else’s.”

  The duchess smiled a little. “Don’t we all.”

  Mary Elizabeth moved to the door. A footman opened it for her, but before she crossed the threshold, the duchess spoke one last time. “Choose for yourself. Stand up to her, but don’t let her ruin your choice. If Harry is what you want, take him, and damn them all.”

  Mary Elizabeth smiled grimly but did not answer. She met the man in question in the hallway before she had taken three steps.

  “Mary, you’re not wearing breeches. I believe I am shocked.”

  Mary Elizabeth made to walk right by him, but Harry caught her arm. “You’re meant to go sailing with me.”

  She faced him then, not able to muster even the hint of a smile. Her mother’s letter lingered like a bad taste in the mouth, the vellum burning a hole in her hand. She crumpled the letter, but still felt its sting.

  “I’m not fit company for the dog kennel, Harry, much less a fancy duke.”

  He drew her close, heedless of the footmen standing by and the guests who might any moment come traipsing down the staircase to find them standing together. “I’m no duke with you, Mary. I’m your friend.”

  She met his eyes and saw that he meant what he said. No one had ever stood with her against her mother, not even her da. If her family would not stand with her, she could not expect Harry to do so. But his friendship was a salve on her pride, and on her heart, even so.

  “Let’s have that sail, then. If you’ll let me onboard in a skirt.”

  “I prefer it.”

  She laughed, in spite of her overwhelming feeling of darkness. Harry’s blue eyes seemed to gleam with mirth, but beneath that was concern. She did not want to talk about her mother’s note, nor what her mother’s intentions were for her future. Mary Elizabeth found that she did not want to think at all. Perhaps some time on the sea would be good for that.

  * * *

  Harry did not know what was wrong with his girl, for she had been smiling when he left her at the door of her room the night before. She was not smiling now.

  Mary Elizabeth picked up a heavy stone on the way to the dock, and instead of casting the stone into the sea, she took a ribbon from her gown and tied the rock inside a letter she was carrying. As soon as he had her in his sloop and the sail raised, taking in the wind, she cast the rock and the letter together into the sea.

  “What was that?” he asked her.

  “Ill news that needs must be cast away,” she answered him. “My mother is coming.”

  “Is that bad?” Harry asked, feeling like a bit of a fool. “Do you not like her?” He had heard of girls and their mothers being at daggers drawn, but he had never seen it for himself, as he did not have a sister.

  “I love her,” Mary Elizabeth answered him, looking grim in spite of the sunshine on her face. “She tears at my heart as no one else can.”

  Not for the first time, Harry was humbled by this woman’s honesty. He wondered if he could ever match it if he knew her for a hundred years. He could try, but it was in his nature to keep his own counsel, and his father had beaten the truth into him that a duke never showed weakness, not before a woman, nor anyone.

  Harry wondered if he could learn to see simple honesty not as a weakness, but as a strength. This woman, at least, deserved nothing less.

  “I am sorry she hurt you.”

  She did not answer him, but looked out to sea, the wind in her face, teasing the hair out of her braid.

  Harry trimmed the sail to take them into shore. He owned an island not far from home, and he was taking her there to get away from his houseguests, so that he might enjoy her company alone. He knew that he should have brought her brother Alex along on their sail, or even her friend Catherine, but when it came time to set off for the docks, he hadn’t done it. He told himself that while they were alone, he simply wouldn’t touch her again. At least, not until he had convinced her to marry him. He wondered, should he ask her there, on the sea, with the sun shining on her golden hair? Before he could, she had leaped out of the boat and into the shallows, wetting her skirt to the knees. He jumped off after her and helped her pull his light teak boat into shore.

  “This is a fine craft,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I am not allowed on my family’s ships anymore, but I love the sea. I have loved it since I was a child.”

  The crashing waves helped them bring the skiff onto the beach, and Harry pulled it away from the tide line. He took a burlap sack out of the hold, which contained their lunch of bread and cheese.

  “I will teach you to sail, then,” Harry offered. “You are welcome on any ship I own.”

  She smiled at him, and the maple brown of her eyes shown with that familiar hint of green around the irises. Harry stood looking down into her face, knowing that no matter how many years he shared with her, he would never grow tired of looking into those eyes and watching their color change. Mary Elizabeth did not go farther up the beach, nor did she look away, but she set her hand over his heart and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

  “I promised your mother that I would have a care for your heart,” she said. “I must not break it.”

  “You won’t,” he said.

  She looked at him, her fingers caressing his cheek where his whiskers had already started to grow in from his morning shave. “I will do my best not to bruise it,” she said, “but I am not sure that I can marry you yet.”

  “I’ll wait,” Harry answered. “I’ll wait until Doomsday, if I must.”

  “You must secure the succession and have a son.” She answered him with his mother’s argument.

  “Bugger the succession, and damn the duchy. A cousin can have it. I would rather have you.”

  Mary Elizabeth did not believe his declaration. He would not have believed it himself, if he had not made it. But his pulse was steady and his mind sure. He knew himself. After thirty years, he damn well should. This woman was his future, and his future mattered more than his mother’s wishes, more than the pressure the king and his cronies might bring to bear. He was the king’s cousin, though a distant one, and His Majesty took a sporting interest in his well-being. Damn the man for an interfering ass.

  “I was not allowed to fight in the war,” Harry said suddenly, speaking of the thing he had never mentioned to another soul, the shame that he had done his best to forget. He had failed at that, as at so many things, and had come home to grieve his failure—until his mother brought Mary Elizabeth here to draw him out of the fortress he had built around himself. Harry knew that he would never be the same again. Mary Elizabeth might leave him on the morrow, but he had changed for knowing her, and for the better.

  Mary Elizabeth could not hear his thoughts. She was focused on the words he had spoken and frowned. “Who can stop a duke from doing anything?” she asked.

  “His kin,” Harry answered her. “The king. He was Prince Regent in those days. And, ultimately, the Duke of Wellington. He refused my service, not once, but twice.”

  “Were they all daft?” she asked, scoffing at English foolishness as she
so often did. But this time, her censure had a keener edge, and he knew that she would defend him against Wellington, even against the king himself.

  “Show me where these self-righteous bastards are and I’ll run them through.”

  Harry laughed and drew her close, so that her soft hair tickled his chin as he held her against him, his cheek resting on her braid. Harry lifted her chin then, and kissed her, knowing that he should not take advantage of her again, but not being able to resist the soft pliancy of her body against his own.

  Mary Elizabeth kissed him back, but would not be distracted from her ire. She leaned away from him. “These English bastards told you not to fight because you are a duke?”

  “Yes,” Harry answered her. “I am an only son, and the duchy has been passed from father to son, unbroken for eight hundred years.”

  Mary Elizabeth looked more thoughtful then, and less angry. “My God, Harry. You must marry. I cannot be the one to break that chain, even if it is a line of English.”

  Harry pressed her close to him, feeling his body respond to her nearness as it always did, as he knew it always would. He did not speak of the things he would like to do to her down on that sand. He did not want to continue speaking of his duty and his honor, and all the burdens that came along with them. Instead, he kissed her cheek and drew her by the hand farther up the beach, away from the tide.

  “We’ll eat,” he said. “We’ll enjoy the sunshine of this beautiful day and forget mothers and princes altogether.”

  He tossed a blanket down for them to sit on and meant to draw her onto it with him, but she stood still, staring at him, as if trying to solve a riddle that eluded her. “All right, Harry” was all she said, as she sat down beside him and opened the sack to find their bread and cheese.

  Mary Elizabeth leaned close to him then, handing him a bit of food, and her lips brushed his of their own accord, opening over him as if to devour him. “I love you, Harry. We’ll forget the rest, if we can.”

  Harry felt as if his heart were a seabird that, caged all its life, had only now just taken flight. He kissed her back, but gently, so as not to frighten her with his ardor, if such a thing was possible.

  “That is all that matters, Mary. You’ll see.”

  Though she did not look convinced, she did not argue with him either. For blessed once, he accepted her silence as a temporary victory.

  Twenty

  Harry had not kissed her once on their journey back to his house, not even when she had leaned close to him on the skiff. He had pressed his lips to her temple when she had asked him how long he thought it would take for her mother to reach them from Edinburgh, but after that, he had not touched her but to hold her hand. She wished he had, for his mouth was the most beautiful piece of distraction she had ever beheld, and she might have used a bit of distracting.

  She had no idea how much distraction she needed until she returned to the duchess’s house in time for tea and found her mother waiting for her.

  Mary Elizabeth stood, with her braid bound to the nape of her neck like a farrier’s daughter, her pink gown wrinkled and smelling of salt from her afternoon at sea. She wondered to herself idly why she had never acquired the sense to change her clothes when coming in from outdoors. Her mother had tried to make her learn that small lesson for years, since she was a child. The lesson had not taken, not even among the fancy Lowlanders in Edinburgh. It did not take now, among the English elite in the duchess’s parlor.

  There was one bit of blessing, however. The Englishwomen who had come hunting Harry were not in evidence as Mary Elizabeth faced her mother down. They were off on the terrace, being entertained by some young cousin of Harry’s, a bright, young girl who seemed at ease among them. Mary Elizabeth supposed that was as it should be, since the girl was among her own people. She remembered what that ease was like, when she had been home among her own in Glenderrin.

  She wished herself there now, as her mother took in her dishabille, from the top of her braid with its escaping curls, to the toes of her muddy boots. Mary Elizabeth felt Harry shift at her back, before he stepped forward and sketched a decent ducal bow.

  “My lady of Glenderrin, welcome to Claremont.”

  Mary Elizabeth watched as her mother smiled at Harry, the warmth of her eyes betraying little of the simmering anger that waited just beneath that smile’s surface. Harry was a smart man, though, for he was not taken in by it. After he kissed her mother’s hand, he returned to Mary Elizabeth’s side, as if to stand between her and whatever storm her mother’s anger might unleash upon her.

  Mary Elizabeth loved him well, and never so well as in that moment. But this confrontation had been a long time in coming, and he could not shield her from it, nor from its aftermath, no matter how many coronets he offered her.

  It was his mother who spoke. “Harry, be a dear and leave us alone for a bit. The ladies have a bit of catching up to do. They have not seen each other since March.”

  Harry touched Mary’s hand once, low down and close to her side. He did this swiftly, in an effort not to be seen, but both the ladies present saw him do it, for they had eagle eyes. Harry did not notice this, however, for his eyes stayed on Mary Elizabeth’s face. She wanted to kiss him, there, in front of both their mothers, and toss a bit of defiance in both their faces: her mother’s, for breaking her heart, and his, for helping her to do it.

  But Harry had nothing to do with this fight and, truly, his mother did not either. So Mary Elizabeth did not kiss him but smiled at him instead. “I will see you at dinner,” she said.

  “I will escort you in.”

  He left her there, much against his own will, it seemed. He bowed once more to her mother and nodded to his own, and left, the door shushing closed behind him as Billings pulled it to.

  Mary Elizabeth crossed the room to the tea tray and poured herself a cup. She added sugar and a bit of milk, pleased to see that her hand did not shake. Though all she wanted to do was cast the tea in her mother’s face, she took a sip of it instead, before lifting a sugar biscuit and placing it neatly on the saucer beside it.

  She sat down in one corner of the sitting area, with her back to the French doors and the beauty of the day beyond. Mary Elizabeth ate the biscuit, every crumb, though she tasted none of it, the mass of it turning to sand in her mouth. She swallowed it down and finished her tea. All the while, her mother stood still, staring at her.

  “I see that with all the money I sent for your upkeep in London, none of it went for a decent gown.”

  The first shot over the bow went wide, as her mother had meant it to. Her ladyship was simply warming up, as Mary Elizabeth well knew. Getting her range, as a gunner might say.

  The duchess shifted on her settee and cleared her throat. “For God’s sake, Anna, sit down. How can a woman take a second cup of tea with you looming about like Athena watching over a battlefield?”

  Mary Elizabeth’s mother smiled again, this time with more genuine warmth. She did sit and even accepted the cup that the duchess refilled for her, though she did not drink from it. Mary Elizabeth set her own cup aside and fingered her dagger beneath her gown, though against her mother, she was unarmed, as always.

  “The duke seems quite attached to you,” her mother said. “I had been given to understand that he has not yet offered for you. Since taking you out alone without a chaperone this afternoon, has that situation changed?”

  Mary Elizabeth did not think of what her answer should be. She did not plot or plan, for plotting and planning was not part of her nature. She was an honest girl and an open one, though that honesty had never been appreciated by her mother, nor was anything else about her for that matter. Mary Elizabeth felt the sting of that truth in her heart, as she always did, but this time, it was followed by the salve of another truth. Harry cared for her and would no matter what her mother said or did. And the love of Harry Percy, duke or no, was no small t
hing.

  “Harry has offered for me,” Mary Elizabeth said.

  Her mother’s shoulders relaxed, but only a little, as she sipped a bit of her tea. She did not have long to recline against the cushions of her stiff settee, however, for Mary Elizabeth went on.

  “He has asked me, but I have not answered him.”

  Her mother’s eyes fastened on her again, and the august lady set her teacup down. Mary took in the beauty of her mother’s face and wondered if that was where her own beauty had come from. Her mother seemed more hard planes and angles than Mary had ever been, in spite of all her exercise and knife throwing. Mary Elizabeth tried to remember a time when she and her mother had not had their men as a buffer between them. Even that last dark day in Edinburgh, Alex and Robbie had been there. And now they were alone, sitting with a stranger, with only a tea cart between them.

  Her mother’s coiffure was perfect, as it always was, her curls smoothed into obedience, caught up at the nape of her neck in a French chignon. Her blue eyes were as brilliant as polished sapphires, in spite of the anger that lurked in them now. Her jaw was too genteel to be clenched, but it did hold a line of tension—tension that Mary Elizabeth had put there.

  For the millionth time in her life, Mary Elizabeth wished that her mother had a different daughter, one who wore muslin and danced prettily, who ate dainty cakes and never walked out with a gentleman, much less rode to hounds, hunting deer. But, as her old nurse was fond of saying, if wishes were horses, all men would ride.

  Mary Elizabeth loved her mother, but she knew with unwavering certainty that she was herself, and no other. She never could, nor ever would, be any mincing, quiet, obedient girl. There was some freedom in this, as she sat and looked at her mother, and let her hopes for reconciliation go.