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For Jack—
The best nephew an aunt could ever ask for.
I’m so proud of the young man you are,
a gentleman in every sense of the word.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Also by Suzanne Enoch
Praise for Suzanne Enoch
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
“What do ye think, Lachlan?”
Her heart pounding, Lady Rowena MacLawry pirouetted in the middle of the Glengask House morning room. All the way from Paris, this gown was. It practically floated on the air, mauve and a deep gray she knew precisely matched her eyes, because she’d spent hours holding up swatches of material to her mirrored reflection until she’d found the perfect charcoal hue.
“What do I think aboot what?” Lachlan MacTier, Viscount Gray, returned from the corner of the room.
“My gown,” she added, trying not to sound plaintive.
He looked up from the game of cards he was playing against her older brother Munro. “Oh. It’s fancy. Are ye having a costume ball fer yer birthday, then?”
Rowena frowned, dropping the folds of the skirt she’d held to show off the lace hems. “This isnae a costume. It’s my new dress. Ranulf willnae tell me if he’s bought me a gown, so I had this one made. I cannae be withoot a new dress fer my eighteenth birthday.”
Munro chuckled. “Gads, Winnie, ye know ye could torch half yer wardrobe and still nae wear the same gown twice in a month.”
“Oh, be quiet, Bear,” she countered, using her brother’s rather appropriate nickname. “A lady must have gowns.”
“‘A lady,’” Lachlan repeated with a snort. Pushing to his feet, he walked over to tug on her long, midnight-black ponytail. “I dunnae think a lady has burrs in her hair.”
She tried to ignore the responding tingle running down her scalp. “I dunnae have burrs in my hair.”
He tugged again. “Nae today.”
“I’m going to put it up fer the party, anyway. Ranulf said we could have four waltzes. Four!”
“Aye?” Lachlan sat again, a strand of his dark brown hair falling across one light green eye as he looked at her. “Best of luck in finding four lads willing to brave the Marquis of Glengask glaring at them like the devil himself.”
Three. She only needed to find three lads, because he would be the fourth. That was how she’d imagined it for months and months. Rowena kept her expression carefully amused. “Ranulf’s my brother; nae my jailer. And he likes ye, Lach. We could waltz.”
“Aye, he likes me. I’m a MacLawry clan chieftain, and I agree with where he’s guiding the clan. And we cannae forget that I bring all the MacTiers to clan MacLawry, and he’s the MacLawry.”
Yes, and Ranulf had become both the chief of clan MacLawry and the Marquis of Glengask at age fifteen, back when Rowena had only been two. The clan was as it had been since her first conscious memory of it. And Lachlan was … Lachlan, eight years her senior and her brother Bear’s closest friend. Handsome as sin and destined to marry her. Except that lately she’d begun to wonder if he realized that last bit.
“It’s more than that, and ye know it.” Rowena gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve a mind to go fer a walk through the glen. Would ye care to join me?”
“Nae while Bear owes me five quid,” he returned, picking up another card and then setting it down faceup. “Where’s Arran?”
“In the library, I’d wager,” Bear put in. “He’ll go with ye.”
But she didn’t want to go walking with Arran; yes, he had a better grasp of fashion and proper, gentlemanly behavior than either Munro or Lachlan, but in the end he was her brother, set midway between Ranulf and Munro. The ladies down in An Soadh and Mahldoen whispered that Arran was devilish handsome—though they said that about all three of her brothers—but the simple fact was that he wasn’t Lachlan. “I’ll go on my own,” she announced, and turned on her heel.
Oh, it was so aggravating! There she was, a week shy of her eighteenth birthday, a young lady of both wealth and good education, and fairly bonny if she did say so herself. And the man she meant to marry found playing a dull game of cards more interesting than taking a walk with her. She could likely say she was going to the kitchen pantry to escape through the Jacobite tunnels below Glengask, and Lachlan would only tell her to take a lantern with her. He was supposed to be chivalrous and attentive, not … not interested.
“Ye shouldnae chase him so hard.” A low brogue came from the library doorway as she stomped past it, and Arran emerged to join her march down the hallway. Or she was marching, rather; with his tall frame and long gait it was merely a leisurely stroll for him.
“I’m nae chasing anyone. I’m off fer a walk, and I asked if Lachlan would care to join me.” She scowled. “And why shouldnae he want to? I’m a charming lass, am I nae?”
“Aye, ye are,” her older brother returned. “Ye’re also … familiar.”
“I am nae familiar!” she protested. “I’ve nae even kissed him.”
“If ye had, he’d likely be dead, ye being nae but seventeen.” The glance he sent her was both assessing and serious. “I dunnae mean to say ye’ve behaved inappropriately. I mean he’s known ye since ye were born, and ye’ve been pestering him since ye learned to talk.”
“It’s nae pestering. It’s flirting.”
“That’s a fine line, piuthar.”
“I’m nae a fool, bràthair,” she retorted. That was just ridiculous. Of course she knew the difference between flirting and pestering. But Arran was the cleverest of them. He’d even spent time in the English army and had seen Prince Georgie. Ignoring what he said would be unwise. “Ye mean to say he’s accustomed to me. That I’m nae but a … piece of furniture he’s learned to walk around.”
“Aye, I sup—”
“Then I have yet another reason to go to London fer my Season. So Lach will see me as a lady. So I’ll learn how to be more than just a Highlands lass.”
“Dunnae pin yer hopes on that, Winnie,” her brother returned, stopping in the foyer to pull on a coat and hand her a heavy wrap. “Ye ken that Ranulf willnae allow it.”
She pulled on the cloak and tied her bonnet beneath her chin. She’d only begun wearing a proper lady’s hat over the past few weeks, and the ribbons still scratched at her. “I’ve asked him to give me a Season as my birthday gift,” she said, nodding at Cooper as the butler pulled open the front door. “And ye know he’d nae deny me a thing if it’s fer my eighteenth birthday.”
“I know that, and I know Ranulf,” Arran commented, offering his arm to her.
A glance up the hallway told her that both Lachlan and Bear seemed perfectly content to let her go walking alone. Either that, or they’d heard Arran join her. Whatever she would have preferred to think of their un
gentlemanly ways, the latter explanation made more sense. Everyone knew she was never to go outside without an escort. Not with Campbells and Dailys and Gerdenses lurking on the borders.
What Arran had said—everything he’d said—made sense, as well. Lachlan MacTier was accustomed to her, and he clearly still saw her as the wee lass who tagged along with the lads to catch frogs and hunt rabbits. To alter that, she needed a Season in London.
Their own mother had had a London Season, but of course she’d been English. The odds of Ranulf agreeing that his only sister should follow in their unfortunate mother’s footsteps were abysmal. They barely even spoke Eleanor Wilkie-MacLawry’s name, and they hadn’t since she’d swallowed poison rather than remain widowed in the Highlands with four rambunctious children.
But none of that altered the fact that Rowena wanted—needed—to go to London and that Ranulf would likely forbid it. Well, she supposed she had a week to make her plans. And to convince herself that the consequences would be worth the trouble likely to come her way as a result.
And if Lachlan didn’t appreciate the young lady she meant to become, surely she could find a handsome, titled Englishman who would.
Chapter One
Three Months Later
“Infatuation. That’s what it was.” Rowena MacLawry flipped her hand at the pair of young ladies seated opposite her. “I mean, for heaven’s sake, I barely knew anyone else.”
Lady Jane Hanover kept her gaze aimed out the coach’s window. “I think I would be more convinced that you’ve set aside your feelings for Lord Gray if you spent less time talking about how you don’t give a fig about him.”
“Don’t be rude, Jane,” her older sister commented. Lady Charlotte smiled at Rowena. “Talking through a complication often does wonders for untangling it. And considering that you spent your previous eighteen years viewing Lord Gray in a particular way, I expect it will take some time to see him differently.”
Rowena nodded, reaching across the coach to squeeze the hand of Viscount Hest’s older daughter. “Just so,” she agreed, carefully burying her brogue beneath the cultured English tones she’d spent the past three months perfecting. “It’s a new way of thinking about things, is all.” Shifting, she looked south out the window to catch a glimpse of the long tail of coaches behind them. Civilization on the hoof, as it were.
The contents of those vehicles was the result of three months spent learning how to be a proper lady, of reminding herself that gentlemen looked only with amusement on ladies who conversed about shearing sheep and fishing and bathing in a loch like some sort of heathen. Well. She wasn’t a heathen. And she had the friends and admirers and wardrobe and manners now to prove it.
“We all have to find a new way of thinking, don’t we?” Jane commented, shifting to sit beside Rowena. “You and I are about to be sisters-in-law. And we’re in Scotland, of all places! Do all Highlanders wear kilts? I never thought to ask.”
As much as she could appreciate a finely shaped man in the black and red and white colors of clan MacLawry, Rowena continued to be surprised at most of her English friends’ infatuation with the garb. “Today everyone will be in kilts and clan colors. Ranulf will want his betrothed to see Glengask at its best.”
Color touched Charlotte’s cheeks, and that was rather heartening. Rowena didn’t think Lord Hest’s older daughter could be as calm as she’d been pretending over the past few days. Not when she was about to set her eyes on what would be her new home. Her new life.
She stifled an abrupt grimace. Charlotte was traveling north to a whole new life with a man who adored her. All she was doing, though, was returning to her old life after three glorious months in London. Nothing had changed for her, except for her, of course. How long would that last, though, back in the Highlands with her brothers? She didn’t belong here any longer. She belonged in wonderful sophisticated London.
“However you feel about Lachlan MacTier and however he feels about you, I would imagine he is going to be very surprised at seeing you again, Winnie.” Charlotte grinned. “And what…” She trailed off as a musical, high-pitched wail drifted over them. “What is that?”
Finally Rowena chuckled. Whatever else might trouble her, the four MacLawry siblings were about to be reunited. Together, at Glengask, they were unstoppable. And Glengask, however much she wished it was several hundred miles to the south, was where she’d been born. “That is ‘A Red, Red Rose,’” she said, “played on at least half a dozen bagpipes, from the sound of it. It’s a love song, for you, I’d imagine. We’re here.”
Her own heart sped, so she could imagine Charlotte’s must be pounding. She could say she felt eager to see Bear again after three months, and that she wanted to throw her arms around clever Arran and his new wife after they’d spent a fortnight on the run from Campbells and MacLawrys. She could tell herself that when Ranulf had left London a little over a week ago and ordered them all to follow, she hadn’t been ready yet to leave. What she never wanted to admit was that part of her hesitation at returning to Scotland had been that niggling daydream—the one where Lachlan MacTier swept her up in his arms and kissed her. It was annoying that she couldn’t stop being such a fool, even over a man who clearly didn’t deserve her. Infatuation was a stupid, embarrassing thing, and it should be done away with entirely.
The timbre of the wheels changed as the coach left the rutted dirt road for the hard-packed gravel and crushed oyster shells of Glengask’s shallow, curving front drive. Charlotte and Jane both pressed up against the windows and chatted excitedly, but Rowena wasn’t ready to look. Not yet. However much she adored her brothers, southern England called to her. Or perhaps deeper down she dreaded her own reaction to seeing Lachlan again, and she was simply a coward.
“Oh, look, Charlotte! It’s Lord Glengask!” Jane exclaimed, practically bouncing in her seat. “And there’s Arran and Mary Campbell!”
“Lady Mary MacLawry, now,” Charlotte corrected, sending another glance at Rowena.
Was she supposed to be ill at ease or jealous? Rowena wondered. Yes, she’d been the sole female at Glengask for the past eleven years, and yes, she wished she’d had an opportunity to make Mary Campbell’s acquaintance before Arran fled London with her, but honestly the idea of having a sister—two of them, once Charlotte and Ranulf wed—filled her with glee. That house had been too full of hot-blooded Highlands men for far too long.
“That very large man with them—is that Bear? Or is he the other one? My goodness, he’s very … muscular.”
“Stop pestering, Jane. We’ll find out in a moment.”
Immediately Jane left the window and seized Rowena’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Winnie,” she said. “I forgot you left here angry.”
Rowena squeezed back. “You mean I slipped out the back door and ran away to London angry,” she said with a brief smile. “I know they’ve forgiven me, and if they hadn’t I would only point out that Ranulf wouldn’t have met Charlotte, and Arran would never have met Mary, if they hadn’t followed me. As for the rest, my eyes have been opened.”
As she finished speaking, the coach rocked to a halt. The door swung open so hard it nearly came off its hinges, and before she could even squeak Bear leaned inside, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her out onto the Glengask drive. Then she was engulfed in large, strong arms and surrounded by the familiar smell of leather and mint soap.
“Bear, I can’t breathe!” she gasped, but hugged him back. If Munro MacLawry was happy to see her back home, then all was right with the world. Or nearly everything was, anyway.
Finally he released her and took half a step back. “By God,” he drawled, the Highlands brogue thick in his voice, “I think ye’re taller. And look at yer hair, Winnie—it’s prettier than raven’s wings. Do ye nae think so, Lach?”
She barely had time to mentally square her shoulders before Viscount Gray stepped into view. Like her brothers he’d donned his kilt of white and black and red, but that was where the similarities of appearan
ce ended. Where her brothers were tall and broad-shouldered and all muscle, Lachlan was leaner and more narrow-waisted. His hair was a deep mahogany rather than the midnight black of the MacLawrys, even if he had adopted Bear’s tendency to avoid a barber. His eyes had always reminded her of lush springtime—but that had been before. Now, they were simply green.
“Aye,” he said, looking like he wasn’t certain whether to offer her a handshake or a hug. “Very fashionable. Welcome home, Winnie.”
She stuck out her hand to spare him the dilemma. It likely wasn’t his fault he hadn’t a romantic bone in his body, she decided. “You’re no doubt surprised I don’t have burrs in my hair,” she said with a practiced smile in her practiced new accent.
His brows knitted. “What happened to yer voice?” he asked.
“Nothing happened to my voice,” she returned, retrieving her fingers as swiftly as she could. He was her silly, youthful past. That was all. And she’d brought her future with her in those other coaches, so she needed nothing from him at all. “It’s the proper way of speaking. Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to meet my new sister-in-law.”
With that she turned her back on him and let out a long breath. What had she been so worried about? That she would abandon her common sense and try to kiss him? Ha. He was merely a man—albeit a very handsome man—and he was no longer the only potential suitor whose acquaintance she’d made. Nor was he even the only one present.
And because of that, she still needed to do a bit more maneuvering. Halfway to her new sister-in-law, she angled over to where her oldest brother stood with his betrothed. “Thank you for allowing me to invite some friends, Ranulf.”
His expression unreadable, the marquis inclined his head. “I require a Sassenach witness or two at my wedding, so we’ll say this is mutually beneficial. Though I think ye had yer own plans more in mind than mine when ye sent oot the invitations.”
“Nonsense, Ranulf. I’ve brought along representatives of the finest English families.” For the most part, anyway.
He glanced from Charlotte to her parents approaching from one of the following coaches. “I suppose we’ll find oot,” he returned, then took a half step closer to her and lowered his black-haired head. “Just ye keep in mind that this isnae London. I’ll bury any lad who steps too far, Rowena.”
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid Page 1
