The Last Debutante

by Julia London

He looked very surprised by that. “Intimidating? In what way?”

  “Well, your size, for one.” And his hair, hanging to his shoulders. Broad, barely clothed shoulders. “And your . . . dress,” she added carefully.

  His brows dipped into a dark frown. “My dress? Buckskins? A linen shirt? A coat and a plaid for warmth? These are intimidating? What, must a man wear lace to quell the fears of an English rose?”

  “I am not an English rose! I mean that you might appear, at first glance, perhaps a bit . . .” She shifted in her seat. “Savage.”

  “Savage!” he bellowed. “I will have you know that I’ve been welcomed into ballrooms across London and was no’ thought a savage!”

  “I don’t mean that you are a savage, but only that to a woman’s eye, there might be a moment of consternation if one is not acquainted. That’s all.”

  He was not appeased. He shifted forward again, propping his good arm against the table so that he could pierce her with his dangerously dark eyes. “Allow me to tell you why your grandmamma shot an unarmed man,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I didna intimidate her. I scarcely had opportunity, aye? She met me at the door with a gun. I announced myself. I told her I had come to inquire why she unlawfully divested my addlepated uncle of one thousand pounds. Her response was to shoot me. Now—have you any whisky? I find all this more than a wee bit trying.”

  Daria was appalled. “Now you accuse Mamie of not only shooting you with your back turned, but stealing as well? I think you are as mad as she!”

  “I beg your pardon, I am not mad.” Mamie stood, reached up to the top shelf, and brought down a green bottle. She took down three small glasses as well, and put them all down with a loud clap before Jamie Campbell.

  Daria did not generally imbibe. But in this extraordinary circumstance, she eyed that bottle of whisky. So did Jamie Campbell. He reached for it, filling the three glasses, then making quick work of one. As he poured another tot of whisky for himself, Daria moaned, laid her arms on the table, and rested her forehead against them, her eyes closed, trying to absorb another impossible turn of events.

  “Oh, Daria, dearest,” Mamie said sweetly, and Daria felt her grandmother’s hand on the back of her head, stroking her. “I am so very sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”

  Daria was beyond apologies. She was wildly alarmed. She had no idea what she was to do, and Daria always, always knew what to do. When Mr. Anders, a bachelor with thinning hair and bony fingers, had pursued her quite ardently last year, she’d known precisely what to do. When Mrs. Morton had confided in her that Daria’s good friend Lady Ashwood was rumored to have contributed in a nefarious way to the death of her first husband, Lord Carey, Daria had known precisely how to scotch the rumors. But God help her if she knew what to do in this little cottage with these two.

  “Go on, then. Tell her,” Jamie Campbell rumbled. “Tell your granddaughter why you robbed my uncle of one thousand pounds, aye?”

  “I didn’t rob him of a thousand pounds!” Mamie said angrily, causing Daria to lift her head. “Do I look as if I have even five pounds to my name? If you must know, Daria has come to Scotland to deliver a banknote—” She stopped herself and closed her eyes a moment, her fingers wrapping around one of the glasses of whisky. “Never mind that. The point, Mr. Campbell, is that I shot you quite by accident and I have endeavored to repair the harm and save your life in the process.”

  “Diah,” he muttered, throwing up a hand in frustration.

  Mamie pushed a tot of whisky across the table to Daria. “Drink it. For your nerves. It’s Irish, superior to anything you will find here.”

  Jamie Campbell slammed his fist on the table at that remark.

  Daria ignored the whisky. “I don’t quite understand, Mamie. Were you defending yourself, or was it an accident? And how does one shoot a man by accident? That is to say, why were you pointing a gun at him? If he announced who he was, if he stated his business, would you not have lowered your gun?”

  Mamie tossed back the whisky as if she were quite practiced at it.

  “I think your grandmamma does no’ care to be questioned,” Campbell scoffed.

  “My name, Mr. Campbell, is Mrs. Frances Moss,” Mamie said sternly.

  “Will you still deny, Mrs. Moss, that you have made Hamish Campbell’s acquaintance, then?”

  “She has admitted shooting you by mistake—must you badger her about this ridiculous accusation of stealing?” Daria asked angrily.

  But Jamie Campbell ignored her, keeping his gaze steady on Mamie.

  “Well . . .” Mamie’s voice trailed off as if she had more to say.

  Daria’s heart began to pound. She couldn’t have possibly taken one thousand pounds. “Well? Well what?”

  “It is possible that I have made his acquaintance,” Mamie said uncertainly.

  “Aha!” Mr. Campbell said triumphantly, jabbing his arm in the air and instantly grimacing in pain, doubling over his injured side.

  “You know him?” Daria cried.

  “I wouldn’t say that I know him, no,” Mamie said. “But I might have met him. At the pony races, perhaps. But more to the point, I most certainly did not swindle one thousand pounds from him.” She snorted as if that were preposterous, apparently missing the irony that since she had been untruthful about everything else, it was impossible to believe her now.

  Daria dared not look at Campbell as she rose up from her chair. She drew Mamie up from hers, held her by the arms, and looked into her blue eyes. “Have you received any money from him, Mamie?”

  Mamie gave Campbell a sidelong glance, but Daria gave her a gentle shake. “Mamie? Have you accepted any money from Mr. Hamish?”

  “Mr. Campbell. Hamish Campbell,” Jamie Campbell said behind her.

  Mamie’s lashes fluttered and she looked down. “He might have given me a gift—”

  “Bloody hell!” Jamie Campbell exploded, and brought his fist down on the table again, rattling the bottle and the whisky glasses. “Woman, I am of a mind to drag you to Edinburra on a charge of thievery!”

  Daria’s hands fell from her grandmother’s arms. She couldn’t think, her mind suddenly a blank slate. She couldn’t breathe. She put her hand to her throat; fear was welling up in her, choking her. Something was horribly wrong with her grandmother. Mamie had heretofore been scrupulously honest. How could it have come to this? And what of her parents? How would she ever explain this to them?

  Daria instinctively stepped back, away from the woman she had loved with all her heart, her mind racing. She looked at Jamie Campbell, who, to his credit, looked at her with a bit of sympathy. Her only hope for Mamie was to appeal to him for forgiveness, for help. But if Mamie had stolen one thousand pounds . . . the amount stunned her. What hope did she have that she would not be caught and prosecuted for thievery, just as Jamie Campbell had said?

  Daria desperately tried to think.

  “Where is my horse?” Jamie Campbell asked quietly.

  “Quite safe,” Mamie said. “I’ve a paddock nearby, and he’s been properly fed.”

  “My dog as well?”

  Mamie frowned. “He has a ham bone as large as he is. I think he has fared well enough.”

  That was his dog? Daria suddenly marched to the door and threw it open. The dog was sitting patiently beside the door. “Come,” she said, gesturing inside. The dog cocked his head to one side.

  “Trobhad!” Campbell called, and the dog rushed inside, his tail wagging furiously, his nose sniffing his master and his wounds.

  Jamie Campbell put his hand on the dog, stroking his head, and turned a cold gaze to Mamie. “I will no’ allow you to walk free from this, Mrs. Moss.”

  “Whatever she has taken, we will repay,” Daria said quickly. Campbell looked as if he were prepared to argue. “Mamie,” Daria said quickly, and put her hands on Mamie’s shoulders. “Will you please go and dress?”

  Mamie’s eyes widened with surprise. “But I—”

  “Please, darl
ing,” Daria pleaded with her. “You’re wearing yesterday’s gown.”

  Mamie glanced down. She pressed a hand to her hair and frowned at the feel of it. “Yes, all right; perhaps I ought.” She walked out of the little kitchen, looking defeated.

  Daria waited until she heard the door of Mamie’s room open and close, then whirled toward Jamie Campbell.

  “Donna even try,” he said. “I do no’ give quarter to thieves and liars.”

  This was clearly going to be a tussle.

  Eight

  ON AN EARLY-SUMMER day the previous year, much like this one, Jamie had sat in the laird’s chair at Dundavie, his finger tracing over the crack in the leather, and received the Murchisons, a well-to-do English family who had purchased the land next to the Campbell clan lands and infested it with sheep. Mr. Murchison had made an enticing offer to some Campbells to buy their parcels of land, which they had accepted. Many in Jamie’s clan didn’t fully grasp that the ability of each of them to prosper was based on their ability to prosper as a whole. Each clan member owned his or her parcels of land, but the yields from those lands went into clan coffers and benefited the entire clan. So when parcels were sold, it reduced the land available for the clan to profit from.

  Change was coming swiftly to Dundavie, and Jamie was trying his best to steer a rocking ship to the new reality. However, he was naturally predisposed to dislike the Murchisons, who had come that summer day with an offer to buy more acreage.

  But what Jamie recalled about that day was how Murchison’s daughter had interrupted her father twice to make a point of her own that she seemed to think critical to the conversation. He’d been surprised by it, for women generally were not present when matters of business were discussed, and if they were, they certainly didn’t speak. Particularly Englishwomen. He’d never known a young, unmarried Englishwoman to be any more engaged than a piece of furniture in matters of business.

  Miss Daria Babcock, he was learning, was in some regard much like that young Englishwoman. Give her a podium and a proper cause, and he’d wager she could beat men into submission with her tongue. She was certainly trying to subdue his rage, talking quite a lot as she paced before the table, her robe trailing behind her, her knotted hair swinging loosely above her waist, her arms wrapped tightly around her.

  He liked the way her hips swung as she paced, the way she knit her brows as she concentrated on her argument. He liked the curve of her neck, the swell of her bosom above her folded arms. If the circumstances were different, he would like her quite a lot.

  Miss Babcock suddenly halted and stared at him, clearly waiting for a response. When he did not offer one, she demanded, “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

  Jamie shifted uncomfortably. He’d heard some of her words, although which ones he could not say. It hardly mattered—nothing she could say to him would change his mind. He was of the firm opinion that Mrs. Moss should be cast into gaol and left to rot. But as he had no gaol to cast her into, he’d not decided what he would do with the old woman quite yet.

  Miss Babcock suddenly leaned across the table so that she was at eye level with him. “She’s ill, Mr. Campbell, quite ill, deserving of your compassion. You have my word that I shall see your uncle’s money repaid if you will allow me to escort her home to Hadley Green, where my mother might care for her as she needs.”

  Jamie cocked his head to one side. “Do you suggest that I allow you and the old woman to leave Scotland, then wait patiently for one thousand pounds to magically appear?”

  “I gave you my word.”

  Jamie smiled. He slid his hand across the table and wrapped his fingers around her wrist before she knew what he was about. She tried to yank free, but he pulled her closer until she was forced to brace herself on her elbows, bent halfway over the table, her face only inches from his, her light brown eyes sparkling with ire. “Your word will no’ be sufficient. That old woman deserves to be put away, if not hanged, aye?” His gaze slipped to her mouth. “Consider yourself fortunate that she’s no’ been dealt a Scot’s justice quite yet. Or you, for that matter.”

  “Me? What have I done?”

  “In the Highlands, a family stands on the actions of one.”

  Miss Babcock yanked her hand free and stood back, glaring down at him. “You will not frighten me with threats, sir. I think it is clear that my grandmother is not herself. I’ve known her for one and twenty years and I’ve never known her to do the slightest bit of wrong.” Her expression softened, and the young woman suddenly looked very weary. She sighed and slipped into the chair directly across from Jamie. “She is the kindest, most generous woman,” she said sadly. “I have always adored her.”

  “Touching,” Jamie said. “But no’ enough to sway me.”

  “Oh!” she snapped, and shifted around in her chair so she was facing to the side, her arms folded tightly across her chest once more.

  “I beg your pardon if you are offended. I donna know how the English treat those who will, unprovoked, shoot a man in the back, but in Scotland, generally speaking, they are no’ allowed to roam freely.”

  Miss Babcock glanced heavenward and closed her eyes. “Then would you at least consider helping me?”

  He snorted. “You?”

  She cast a cow-eyed look at him. “Surely you can appreciate how difficult this is for me.”

  He could not begin to guess why he should care, given the injustice that had been done to him. He suspected the Brodies were behind it all somehow, seeking vengeance for the trouble with Geordie. If that were true, it only made Jamie want to put the old woman away that much more. But he could not look into the lovely eyes in the lovely face across from him now and say so, though he would like to. He gave her an indifferent shrug.

  She twisted in her chair once more to face him. “The irony, Mr. Campbell, is that you are the only one who can help me now. Isn’t that absurd? But it’s true! Who else but you can help me discover what has happened to my grandmother?”

  “No.”

  “I am new to Scotland,” she doggedly pressed on. “I can’t even tell you where in Scotland we are at present. How could I possibly go about the business of discovering what has happened to my beloved grandmother? But you . . . you seem to know some things, and you are clearly in a position to learn more. There is no one else I can turn to for help.”

  “Very touching,” he said, and looked away from those pleading eyes. “But no.” His leg was beginning to ache fiercely. He picked up the tot she’d left untouched and downed it.

  “How can you refuse me?” she pressed. “Will you not put yourself in my shoes for a moment?”

  He pushed himself up, determined to walk on his injured leg.

  The moment he did, Miss Babcock was up, too, darting around the table and tucking herself up under his arm, draping it over her shoulders to help him walk. Jamie debated not using her as a crutch, but the sooner he could move, the sooner he could leave this wretched little cottage.

  He began to move, leaning heavily on her.

  “I don’t understand your reluctance,” she said as she slipped her arm around his waist to bear his weight.

  Jamie grimaced with the pain that sliced through him at each step, shooting up his side and back, into his shoulder.

  “Are you all right? Perhaps you should sit.”

  “I’m fine.” He gritted his teeth against the searing pain as they moved into the small parlor. An ornate clock ticked the seconds by with each excruciating step. He didn’t need to be reminded how slow and infirm he was, and turned away toward the windows. Surprise and relief filled him when he saw Duff and two of his men making their way down the path.

  Jamie turned Miss Babcock about so that she would not see them.

  She was oblivious to the change in direction, so intent was she on convincing Jamie to let them go unscathed. “I refuse to believe a man of your obvious stature would truly desire to see an old woman pay unfairly for her madness.”

  “Then you would be di
sappointed,” he said gruffly. His dog Aedus pricked his ears up and looked to the door.

  “Perhaps I could give you the banknote I brought Mamie? It’s not enough to cover your entire loss, but you might hold it as collateral until my father can send what is owed. That’s all I have to offer at present,” she said impatiently. “I didn’t come prepared to bargain on her behalf. How could I have—What is that noise?” she said, pausing, trying to turn her head to the window.

  Jamie prevented her from turning completely, but he couldn’t prevent Aedus from rushing to the door, his tail wagging furiously, dancing to be let out.

  “Is someone here?” Miss Babcock tried to move away from Jamie, but he sank against her at the same moment someone knocked on the door. “Mr. Campbell, if you please,” she said, pushing against him and exhaling with her effort when he would not release her.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Moss cried, emerging from her exile. She looked frantic, her cheeks tear-stained and the skin beneath her eyes dark. She had changed her gown and tucked up her hair, but there was a wildness yet in her eyes.

  “Go on, then,” Jamie said to her. “Open the door.”

  “Let go,” Miss Babcock said.

  Jamie did not let her go. “Open it,” he said again to Mrs. Moss.

  The old woman paled even more. But she walked to the door, pushed the dog aside, and opened it. She instantly stood back, lifting her chin high, defiant.

  Duff’s large frame filled the doorway. His gaze swept over Mrs. Moss, the room, and then fixed on Jamie. “ ’S fhada bho nach fhaca mi thu.”

  I’ve not seen you in a while.

  And Jamie had never been quite as pleased to see Duff as he was now. “Aye. Ran into a spot of trouble. What took you?”

  Duff glanced at the two women. He put his hand on the dog’s head, scratched him behind the ears, and responded in Gaelic, “I went back to fetch some men. I wasn’t certain what I might find. What in hell has happened to you, then?”

  “She shot me,” Jamie responded in their tongue.

  Duff looked at Miss Babcock.