Grace Burrowes - [MacGregor 02]

by Once Upon a Tartan

  She sounded exactly like his own mother when she was in high dudgeon over some folly of his lordship’s. In such a mood, a man could say nothing right, could not appeal to reason or sentiment.

  Tye was halfway to the door when he realized he’d just word for word applied the very defenses he’d heard come out of his own father’s mouth on so many tiresome, sad occasions. He stopped, turned around, and kept his tone civil with effort. “What are your terms, Hester Daniels?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He advanced on her, pleased to see she stood her ground—it wasn’t as if he’d ever intend her bodily harm, for God’s sake. “What are your terms? On what terms will you marry me if you’re carrying our child?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  At least she wasn’t shouting, and when he leaned over her like this, Tye could catch a whiff of her lemony fragrance and see the gold flecks in her uncertain eyes.

  “I mean,” he said softly, “we are two intelligent people who will want what is best for our child. We can argue over whom to blame for the child’s conception—though I cannot view the matter as entirely unfortunate—but we must not allow an innocent child to suffer for our decisions. On what terms would you marry me?”

  She blinked, some of the fight going out of her. “I will not live in England, not while your father is alive and making mischief like this.”

  “Done. I have an estate outside Edinburgh, and my mother has just finished refurbishing it. What else?”

  He’d surprised her, but the renewed fire in her eyes said she was rallying. “This child will be born on Scottish soil, Tiberius, promise me that.”

  “I promise you that to the extent it can be brought about by mortal man. What else?”

  She eyed him up and down. “If your idiot father is determined Fiona cannot live with her mother, than she’ll live with us.”

  “I’m not sure I can arrange that. Quinworth seems to be legally in the right of the matter.”

  “You can arrange it, Tiberius.” She folded her arms, looking very certain of her point. “Something is driving your father’s decision to retrieve Fiona. He’s ignored her existence for her entire life, and now he must have her posthaste. Figure out what his motivations are, and you will be able to wrest her from him.”

  Her reasoning was sound, and it spoke to the puzzlement Tye had felt regarding his father’s behavior since the first mention of this Scottish venture.

  “I will not make you a promise I do not know I can keep, Hester.”

  “Then we do not have an agreement. You had best hope we don’t have a child, either.” She flounced out, every inch a woman intent on having the last word.

  He let her have it, silently saluting the library door when she’d gently closed it in her wake.

  They had managed to convert an argument into a bargaining session. He decided to be encouraged by that. He was also encouraged that she’d used his given name occasionally, even to express her ire toward him. Then too, she’d given him a great deal to think about regarding his father’s choices in this whole, misguided matter—he was encouraged by this as well.

  Though she might not be pregnant.

  And he might not be able to meet her terms.

  And he was going to have to find his niece two ponies and a rabbit.

  And he was leaving in the morning.

  Tye went to the sideboard and poured himself a generous portion of whisky, downed it in one swallow, then poured another.

  Nine

  Fiona found going into Ballater with the knowledge she wasn’t going to come back for quite a while exciting and a little frightening. She sat in the big coach with Aunt Hester on one side and Aunt Ree on the other, the conversation the kind of cheerful talk adults thought up to distract nervous children.

  To keep children from missing their mamas and worrying that their mamas might not come fetch them home from Northumbria after all.

  “I want to ride with Uncle Tye.”

  Over her head, Fee could feel the aunts exchanging a look that spoke silent, grown-up volumes.

  “There’s no harm in that,” Aunt Ree said after a small silence. “You’ll be sitting in the train for most of the day, and your uncle ought to understand you need fresh air as much as he does.”

  Aunt Hester didn’t say anything. She had not said much of anything all morning, and this too gave Fee an uneasy feeling. Aunt Hester never made things up, never teased and flirted and charmed like Uncle Ian, Aunt Augusta, and even the servants did.

  Aunt Hester rapped on the roof three times, and the coach lumbered to a halt. Halfway across the field to the right, Uncle Tye brought Flying Rowan down to the trot and turned for the coach.

  “Don’t pet the horse, Fiona,” Aunt Hester said. “You’ll want to keep your hands clean for when you picnic on the train with your uncle.”

  Aunt’s voice was tight, like she was keeping more words back than she was parting with.

  When Uncle rode up to the window, Aunt Ree explained the delay, and Fee was enormously pleased to find herself shortly up on Rowan, cantering toward the train station. Uncle was quiet today, too, which made Fee think maybe he was homesick or missing his family.

  Rowan, though, was in wonderful form, sailing over three stone walls and a burn in fine style. When Uncle brought the horse down to the walk, Fee figured it was as good a time to ask questions as any.

  “Do we have to take the train?”

  “If we want to arrive in Northumbria before week’s end, yes, we do. Lest you think the prospect of train travel cheers me, Rowan and I are as enamored of trains as you are.”

  E-nam-ored. Fee said the word to herself silently three times, and added it to her list of Words Uncle Says. Often she could tell what the word meant from how Uncle used it, and that saved her having to ask.

  When they got to Ballater, Uncle got off the horse and did not let Fee get down immediately. Instead, he found a boy to walk Rowan, and when Fee thought she was going to be scooped off the horse, she was instead directed to climb onto her uncle’s back.

  “I won’t get lost, Uncle. You can put me down.”

  “I need to check for wires at the telegraph office, and you would so get lost. I’d spend half my morning trying to locate you, the other half rearranging our plans when we missed our train, only to find Rowan was already in Aberdeen along with all your trunks.”

  He was striding along as he spoke, sounding quite bothered. Fee resigned herself to being Seen And Not Heard, which was something Uncle Con swore was written in the Bible, though nobody had shown Fee where it said that.

  When they got to the telegraph office, Uncle collected his wires and stood outside on the boardwalk, reading them almost as if he’d forgotten his own niece was clinging to his back.

  “I’m going to swear, Fiona. You will neither emulate me nor tattle on me.” He kept his voice down.

  Emulate meant copy. “I like hearing you swear. You’re good at it. Have we missed our train?”

  “We have not, but the damned nursemaid I hired to meet us in Aberdeen has developed some mysterious blasted illness, and we will thus be cast upon each other’s exclusive company for the entire perishing journey.”

  From the sound of his voice, that was probably a bad thing—to him.

  “Can’t Aunt Hester come with us?”

  Because Fee was on his back, she felt him sigh, felt the way his chest heaved and his shoulders dropped. It would have been fun, except Uncle was unhappy. He maneuvered her to her feet, took her hand, and led her to a bench with a marvelous view of the train station’s front porches and coach yard.

  “I asked your aunt to come with us, and she declined.”

  “Is she mad at you?”

  “How ever did you gain that impression?”

  “She sat next to me at breakfast instead of you, sh
e would not look at you, and she barely ate anything. She was like this when she first came up from London too.”

  Uncle looked pained, which left Fee wanting to do something to help. “I can ask her to come with us.”

  “Fiona…” He cast a glance at her, looking, for the first time in Fee’s experience, uncertain and a little weary. Her mama had looked like that a lot before she married Papa. “It’s complicated.”

  “Are you e-nam-ored of Aunt Hester?”

  “Quite.” His smile wasn’t cheerful at all.

  “She is e-nam-ored of you, too. You made her smile, a real smile too, not just for show so I’d leave her alone.”

  “I made her very upset with me when I revealed that I wanted to take you away to Northumbria. She regarded it as a betray—” He scrubbed a hand over his face and lifted his gaze as if he were talking to God. “I cannot believe I am discussing my amatory failures with a child.”

  Fee did not know what amatory meant, but she knew all too well what failure was.

  She patted her uncle’s arm, which was like patting a rock. “I get in trouble all the time. You apologize, and you behave for a while, and you try to do better next time. Everybody makes mistakes, even Aunt Hester. She told me so herself.”

  “Thank you for that sage advice.”

  “Uncle, you have to at least try.” He was being thickheaded. Aunt Augusta said men were prone to this. Mama had not argued with her over it.

  “Child, I cannot make your aunt forgive me, I cannot undo the hurt I’ve done, and I cannot change my father’s mind once it is made up.”

  It occurred to Fee that he was Being Impossible, but when she was Being Impossible, it was usually because she was upset, tired, and hungry.

  “Uncle, you try to fix what you did wrong not so you can have dessert and get a story before bed. You do it because you’re a good person and you don’t want anybody’s feelings to be hurt.”

  He gave her a funny look. “Am I really a good person? I thought you said I was mean.”

  She shrugged. “That was just words, because I was in a taking.”

  He was quiet, gazing out over all the people and coaches bustling around the yard. “I suspect I use a lot of words, because I am in a taking too.”

  Grown-ups were not always very bright. Fee smiled at him encouragingly, because he was trying. Uncle Tye guddled fish and climbed trees and loved to ride his horse really fast, but he also tried to be grown-up all the time.

  Which must be hard.

  Fee had a cheerful thought. “Do you remember that you beat me at the matching game?”

  “I was showing off, which was stupid of me.”

  How somebody could be stupid and win was a puzzle for another day. “You won a favor from me.”

  “Fiona Flynn, I cannot ask you to manipulate your aunt into accompanying us to Northumbria, when the woman has made it plain she never wants to set eyes on me again.”

  “Then don’t ask me.” Fiona Flynn. She was a MacGregor of clan MacGregor, but Fiona Flynn sounded like the name of a brave Scottish girl who could befriend lions.

  Uncle said nothing, which was likely more thickheadedness. When the coach pulled into the yard and the ladies got out, Fee hopped off the bench and darted directly to Aunt Hester’s side. Grown-ups could be exceedingly silly, just as Fee’s mama had often told her.

  ***

  Hester caught sight of Spathfoy sitting by himself on a bench, looking somehow alone amid all the noise and activity of the yard. She should be glad he was going. Glad he was making it easy to write him off as another deceptive, self-absorbed, useless man with no ability to govern his urges.

  Except that would not wash.

  She had no ability to govern her urges, at least where he was concerned, and that would have been a sufficiently daunting realization in itself. It was made worse by the sneaking sense Spathfoy had honestly sought to improve his niece’s circumstances by taking her south, and his father—may the marquess develop a permanent bilious stomach—had somehow cornered his son into kidnapping Fee.

  “Aunt!” Fiona barreled into Hester’s side. The child had been a bundle of energy all morning, and the ride on her uncle’s horse had only made her more excited.

  “Calm down, Fiona. The train isn’t leaving for half an hour at least.”

  And for that entire half hour, Hester wanted to hug the girl tight and tell her how much she was loved, and how badly she’d be missed by her Scottish relations—which would hardly make Fiona’s departure any easier.

  “Aunt, I’ve changed my mind.”

  Fiona was swinging Hester’s hand as Spathfoy led his horse away to be loaded on the train. Rowan seemed to comprehend what lay before him at the same time Fiona had made her announcement, because the horse planted his front feet and showed every intention of rearing up on his hind legs.

  “Fiona, you have to go. We’ve discussed this. It might be a long visit, but it won’t be forever.”

  Hester watched as Spathfoy spoke sharply to a porter who’d produced a stout driving whip. The earl turned to his horse and began to scratch the beast’s withers.

  “Aunt!” Fiona jerked on Hester’s hand in the most irritating fashion. “I’m not going, and you can’t make me.”

  The dratted child had all but bellowed this announcement to the entire train yard. Hester had the mean thought that perhaps Spathfoy could come guddle his niece’s nerves the way he was soothing his horse.

  “Child, what is this racket?” Aunt Ree came bobbing through the crowd. “My ears will not recover from such an assault.”

  “The nursemaid Uncle hired to travel on with us from Aberdeen has fallen ill,” Fiona said. “I’m not going with just Uncle.”

  Aunt Ree shot Hester a frown. “Child, you adore your uncle.”

  Fiona’s expression turned mulish, making her look very much like her uncle Ian in a stubborn mood. “Uncle is a man.”

  Through all the other emotions roiling through Hester—anger, sadness, confusion, and not a little self-castigation—she heard what her niece wasn’t saying.

  “He has sisters, Fee. You tell him you have to use the necessary, and he’ll find a nice lady to assist you.”

  Fiona dropped Hester’s hand and crossed her arms over her middle. “Nice ladies are strangers. I’m not going to the necessary with a stranger. And what if I get sick on the train and have to change my dress? Lots of people get sick on trains. Uncle won’t even think to have a spare dress or pinny with him.”

  Aunt Ree looked thoughtful. “The child has a point.”

  “Perhaps Spathfoy will delay his departure.” Even as she said it, Hester knew Spathfoy was not going to do that. His arrangements were made; the marquess was probably tapping his booted foot on the platform at Newcastle that very minute.

  “Rowan is scared.” Fiona made this observation very softly, and for a moment, Hester, Lady Ariadne, and Fiona all turned to watch as Spathfoy swung onto his horse bareback. The animal was dancing about, raising and lowering his head while he put one hoof on the ramp into the livestock car, then backed away.

  This scenario continued until the horse was brave enough to put both front hoofs on the ramp and then stand for a moment, quivering, head down, while Spathfoy sat serenely on the beast’s back. The earl might have been taking tea for all the calm in his posture.

  “Uncle is telling him not to be afraid. He’s a very brave horse, really. He’s just young.” Fiona herself sounded young, and Hester was reminded of what it had been like to come north by herself just weeks earlier. Her mother hadn’t spared her even a lady’s maid, meaning Hester had earned looks that varied from pitying to curious to contemptuous.

  Fiona had known so much upheaval in the past year…

  Rowan put all four feet on the ramp, then seemed to realize what he was committing to, and gave a little rear and spin.
His rider waited a moment then aimed the horse back at the ramp.

  Watching the earl’s patience with his horse, Hester came to a realization: Spathfoy was not a bad man. He had erred in not announcing his purpose before becoming a guest in their home; nonetheless, his decision in that regard meant Fiona was not being carried off by a stranger, but rather by a man she had some liking and trust for.

  Understanding the man’s failings was not the same as forgiving them.

  Fee grabbed Hester’s hand again. “Rowan’s going to go up the ramp soon. Uncle’s wearing him down. Pretty soon he’ll feel silly about making such a fuss, and he’ll go right up.” Fiona sounded so hopeful, as if the horse’s troubles were her own. “Won’t you come with us, Aunt? You don’t have to stay very long, just until Uncle Con comes to visit with Aunt Julia. You’d like to see them too, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would.” The words were out without Hester meaning to speak them aloud.

  Aunt Ree thumped her cane. “Well, that’s settled then, and here’s Ian with Augusta to see you off.”

  Hester turned a frown on Aunt Ree for jumping to conclusions just as Fiona started squealing and clapping her hands, and the horse—the horse Spathfoy was so patient with—scooted up the ramp into the rail car, forcing the earl to lean right down against the animal’s mane lest he suffer an injury to his head.

  “I will not stay long with you, Fiona.” Hester tried to sound very stern, but the idea of seeing the child safely south was creating an odd lightness where all those roiling sentiments had been. If nothing else, making the journey would allow Hester to give Quinworth a piece of her mind. “I have nothing packed, and I doubt you’ll want me to linger while you’re learning to ride your pony.”

  “Two ponies, and you can watch while Uncle teaches me!” As unhappy as she’d been a moment earlier, Fiona was in transports of delight now. “We’ll picnic on the train, and we’ll play cards, and Uncle can read to us. We shall have a great adventure.”

  Ian joined them on the platform, Augusta on his arm. “What has my niece kiting about like a spring lamb in clover?”