The Last Debutante

by Julia London

“No’ her,” Jamie added in English. “The other one.”

  Mrs. Moss gasped and took a step backward as Duff turned his large head in her direction. “Carson a?”

  “Why? I have my theories. But the lady will tell you it was quite by accident.”

  Duff’s face darkened as he stared at Mrs. Moss.

  Mrs. Moss, however, had made a slight recovery. “And who are you, sir?” she asked imperiously.

  “One of my men.” Jamie coaxed Miss Babcock forward. “Duff Campbell is his name.” The pain in his leg was excruciating now. But Miss Babcock’s loyalties lay elsewhere, and she tried to wrest herself free of him. Jamie clamped his arm around her, pulling her back against his chest, her bum against his groin. He clenched his teeth against the pain—or something else, he wasn’t certain. “My horse is somewhere nearby.”

  “Aye, we found him. Robbie’s gone to fetch him,” Duff said. “He’s well, he is.”

  Relief swelled in Jamie; at least the old woman hadn’t harmed his horse or his dog. “Good. We’ll have one more with us.”

  Miss Babcock cried out in alarm and struggled again, causing him such discomfort that he let go of her. She leapt to stand before her grandmother, her arms outstretched, and declared dramatically, “You’ll have to shoot me. I will not allow you to harm her!”

  “Ach, lass, there’s been enough shooting,” Jamie said.

  “And just where do you propose to take me?” Mrs. Moss demanded. “This is Brodie land! They’ll not abide your savagery!”

  Jamie groaned at that word. “I am well aware it is Brodie land, but that has little bearing on the wrong done to me. Rest easy, old woman—I donna mean to take you. I mean to take her,” he said, nodding to Miss Babcock.

  Both women cried out in unison. “Me!” Miss Babcock exclaimed. “What have I done? You can’t take me against my will!”

  “You have made your argument for it yourself, lass. Your desire is that I do no harm to your grandmamma. My desire is that we handle this matter by applying the rules of Highland justice. Plainly put, if your grandmamma wants to see you returned to England, she will repay the money she took from Uncle Hamish.”

  “What?” Mrs. Moss cried. “Are you implying that you intend to hold her for ransom?”

  “No’ implying it at all. I am stating it quite plainly.” Jamie reached for a chair to hold himself up at the same moment Duff moved, with startling quickness, to apprehend Miss Babcock before anyone could pick up another blunderbuss. The lass was no match for Duff. She struggled, but Duff clamped her to his chest with one arm so that she could not move.

  Mrs. Moss began to panic, gasping for breath. Duff stoically placed his free hand on her head and pushed it down, forcing it between her knees. “Breathe, then,” he ordered.

  “You cannot take me as your hostage!” Miss Babcock shouted, struggling futilely.

  In no mood to argue, Jamie began his arduous journey to the door, thankful to see his cousin Robbie and MacKellan there, wearing twin expressions of surprise.

  “This is unlawful!” Miss Babcock shouted. “If you so much as try to remove me from this property, I shall see that you are brought to the courts to answer for your actions!”

  “I donna see how you will do that.” Jamie nodded at the men who were gaping at him, looking rather startled to see how oddly bent over he was, wearing nothing but a plaid. Even his boots were missing.

  “I will send for the authorities at once,” Mrs. Moss said. “I shall have the Brodies down around your ears before you even crest the hill!”

  “Aha, so now they are as near as that, are they? Go on, then, madam. Bring them round. You are very fortunate I donna hand you over to Hamish’s children to be dealt with privately. Robbie, a hand.”

  “But I haven’t any money!” Mrs. Moss cried as Robbie grabbed Jamie around the waist.

  “Where are your boots?” Robbie asked.

  “Donna know,” Jamie said. “Let us go. MacKellan, the horses.”

  MacKellan disappeared into the garden as Duff began to move with Miss Babcock. The lass screamed so loud that the four men winced. “I am not going with you!” she shouted, and began to kick at Duff’s legs.

  “Ach, scream your head off your shoulders, then. No one will hear it,” Duff said.

  “No!” Mrs. Moss shrieked, and threw her weight against Duff. It scarcely moved him. “All right, all right,” she said desperately, reaching for Jamie’s plaid before Robbie swatted her away, “I beg you, leave my granddaughter and take me! I am the one you want! Give me to Hamish’s children, so be it, but leave Daria be!”

  Jamie was fast running out of patience. He wanted home, where Rory Campbell, the clan’s doctor, could tend him. “I think you will be a wee bit more compelled to return the money you stole if we hold her as collateral.”

  Mrs. Moss let out a wail unlike anything Jamie had ever heard and sank to her knees, her hands braced against them, her shoulders stooped as she sobbed.

  The sight of her sobered Miss Babcock. She stopped fighting and tried to reach out to her, but Duff would not allow it. “Mamie! Mamie, I shall write to Charity in Edinburgh and she will send for Pappa straightaway—”

  “If you harm her, I will kill you!” Mrs. Moss shrieked, despair twisting her features.

  “I’ll no’ harm her, madam,” Jamie said impatiently.

  “But . . . but you can’t take her like this!” she argued tearfully, and gestured wildly at Miss Babcock. “She’s in her nightclothes!”

  “I’ve a funny trunk we found on the side of the main road. I reckon it’s hers,” said Duff.

  Jamie had had enough. “Bring her, Duff.”

  He struggled alongside Robbie out of that cottage, Aedus trotting before them, his nose to the ground. Mrs. Moss’s wailing cry rent the air, competing with the angry shouting from Miss Babcock as Duff carried her bodily out the door.

  With Robbie’s and MacKellan’s help, Jamie was able to put himself on Niall’s back—but the pain was almost more than he could bear. It felt as if the lead were still in him, moving about, tearing tissue and organ from their roots. This ride over the hills would be a lesson in searing pain. Jamie sucked in a deep breath and glanced back. Duff had a furious Miss Babcock firmly in hand.

  “Here, then,” Jamie said, gesturing to his saddle. “If we run into trouble, you’ll need your hands free.” If the old witch was able to summon help, the Brodies would delight in a reason to engage the Campbells.

  Duff put the kicking, struggling Miss Babcock before Jamie. He wrapped his arm around her, holding her firmly, while Mrs. Moss shrieked that he would regret this action.

  “There will be an army of Brodies at your door!” she shouted.

  “Bring whom you like,” he snapped. “But bring a thousand pounds.” With that, he set Niall to lead, feeling the sickening swirl of pain with each jolt.

  “Mamie, don’t fret, you mustn’t fret!” Miss Babcock cried hysterically. “I shall write to Charity and she will bring help!”

  Mrs. Moss sent up another wail of agony to the heavens; it was almost as great as the wail of pain Jamie felt climbing up his throat.

  Nine

  DARIA FOUND IT impossible to think, smashed up against Campbell as she was. She was in her bedclothes, for heaven’s sake, being kidnapped and carried across the mountains of Scotland by a band of rough men. Her plight grew more dire as the landscape through which they moved took her farther from any meaningful society. From civilization.

  It was the height of indecency. The feel of his body, hard against hers, dwarfing hers, was entirely unnerving. She felt the muscles in his legs move to guide the horse, felt the strength in the arm he had banded around her middle to hold her still. There was nothing she could do—she was entirely powerless against him, his wounds notwithstanding. And what difference would it make if she could somehow fight her way free? There were three more brutes with him. She was barefoot—how far could she run?

  Daria alternated between intolerable anger and
horrifying apprehension. She glanced to her right, to the man Mr. Campbell had called Duff. He kept his gaze straight ahead, his expression inscrutable. Behind her were the other two men—one of them quite cheerful, keeping up a steady stream of that wretched language they spoke. Behind him, Daria’s trunk was being dragged. She could hear it bouncing and cracking against rocks and debris in the road.

  For the first time since she’d left England, she could feel tears building. She swallowed hard—she would not, would not collapse into a maidenly display of angst. She would let him see nothing but determination to kill him at the first opportunity. He had ruined her with this, had ruined her reputation, her life. How would she ever live this down? Any gentleman worth his pedigree would avoid her if word of this abduction got out. The last debutante of Hadley Green would indubitably become the last spinster of Hadley Green! If she hadn’t been between a pair of iron thighs and an iron arm, Daria would have kicked herself for having sought this adventure. Yes, she had longed for something other than waiting for life to find her, but this?

  This was disastrous.

  Daria couldn’t help but expect the worst. She was reminded of Captain Mackenzie, Lord Eberlin’s closest friend and the captain who had brought her to Scotland—and the one who had swept Charity off to Edinburgh, which, incidentally, would give some credence to Lady Horncastle’s assertion that Captain Mackenzie was a man of questionable morals, a fact that she averred with the authority of someone who had examined all the sea captains and should know.

  Nevertheless, Mackenzie had told a harrowing tale at a supper at Tiber Park one evening of a French heiress who had been kidnapped and held for ransom. She had complained about her accommodations aboard the ship to the point of distraction for all the crew, and when the money was finally delivered, the heiress was returned to her family dead. Fever, the crew said. And they claimed that the bruises around her neck were not from being strangled, no, but the unfortunate effect of their having lashed her dead body down to keep it from rolling about.

  Daria shuddered. She would remember to bite her tongue if she thought to complain about her accommodations.

  Mr. Campbell’s arm tightened a little more around her.

  Why didn’t he speak? He was exasperatingly silent! Daria forgot her fear and blurted angrily, “I cannot understand your reasoning for this, in truth. Do you intend to hold me in your cottage? I warn you, it is quite close when a stranger occupies a room. You will find it as tedious as I did; have you thought of that?”

  Beside them, Duff snorted and looked the other way.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Campbell, for taking an innocent woman from her grandmother. I’ve done no harm to you.”

  “He is laird,” Duff said.

  Daria was startled that the big man spoke to her and jerked her gaze to him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Laird. No’ Mr. Campbell, aye? Laird.”

  “At a time like this, you would instruct me on forms of address? Whatever I might call him has no bearing on the fact that he has willfully and unlawfully taken me from my grandmother. It is indecent!”

  “It is the fault of your grandmamma,” Mr. Campbell—or Laird, whoever he was now—said hoarsely.

  His point was rather hard to argue, but Daria did her best. “That may well be, I’ll grant you. Yet you cannot deny that this abduction hardly improves my situation. Is there no other way, sir? Can we not perhaps negotiate a better—”

  “Uist,” he said, squeezing her like a plum. “No more talk.”

  Daria could feel his weight beginning to sag against her. She shifted, but he did not move back; if anything, his body pressed against her even more. He was obviously in quite a lot of pain. Perhaps his pain could be made worse so that he would let her go.

  She pressed against his injured leg and heard his sharp intake of breath. “You might have listened to Mamie, you know,” she said petulantly. “You might have taken the brew she made you to ease the pain.”

  “Stop moving,” he growled. “I might have taken her brew and died, too, aye?”

  Daria shifted again; he jerked her tight against him, his hold surprisingly strong given his state, squeezing the breath from her. She stopped, giving in completely. He relaxed his grip, and with a sigh Daria looked up at the treetops. Her mind raced—she was angry and fearfully determined to escape, in spite of her bare feet. Then she would think what to do next. One step at a time, wasn’t that the course people generally took in dire predicaments?

  She only had to escape before they reached Mr. Campbell’s hovel, for she couldn’t bear to imagine where men like these would keep their hostages. She worked to convince herself she could survive almost anything—a night alone in the forest, for example. She could survive anything but a rat-infested dungeon cell. If there were rodents—

  Daria shivered rather violently.

  “Be still,” her captor said roughly.

  They continued on, his weight pressing even more against her, his chest, heavy and damp with his perspiration, wider than her back. How far would they go? It felt as if they were riding to the ends of the earth. Perhaps they meant to camp, which would present her with an opportunity to flee. She would take his plaid for warmth. She would tear off pieces to wrap around her feet. She would steal a knife from the sleeping giant.

  They crested a rise, then started down a narrow path. Daria could see light sparkling through the dense forest, and as they moved farther down the hill, she could hear water running. A river! They eventually arrived at the river’s edge and moved into a small valley where the river widened, turning dark against the gold and green of the hills. Dark green firs rose up to touch a clear blue sky; wildflowers grew along the worn path. It was ironically picturesque, given that this was the ugliest day of Daria’s life thus far.

  But then she saw hope—up ahead, she could see two men fishing in the river. Her prayers had been answered!

  Duff said something to which no one responded. She guessed he was warning them, telling them that she would attempt to escape. Daria’s heart began to pound—this was her chance, and she had to do it perfectly. As they approached the men, one of them turned to look at the party, and Daria seized her moment. “Help!” she shrieked.

  “Diah,” Duff said.

  She clawed at Campbell’s arm. “Help me! I’ve been kidnapped! I do not belong with these men, they have taken me against my will!”

  Campbell reined up, and for a slim moment Daria thought she’d won. But that hope evaporated when he said, “How are they biting, then, lads?”

  “Fair enough,” the older of the two men said. He trapped his pole between his legs, then doffed his hat, running his fingers through a thick crop of graying red hair.

  Daria’s anxiety choked the air from her lungs. “Do you not hear me?” she cried breathlessly. “These men have kidnapped me and intend to hold me for ransom!”

  “Aye, we heard you,” the fisherman said.

  Speechless—Daria was completely speechless. What man could turn a deaf ear to a woman’s cry for help? And the other one! He squatted down again to continue cleaning a pile of fish as if she’d not even spoken!

  “You’ll bring some round to Dundavie if you catch more than you can use, aye?” Campbell said.

  “There ought to be plenty, Laird.” The man returned his hat to his head and took up the pole he’d tucked between his legs.

  Campbell spoke in that awful tongue to the others, then nudged the horse to walk on. Daria stared ahead in utter disbelief, sagging against her captor as they rode. “A nightmare,” she said in a voice that was dangerously close to a whimper. “I am in the midst of a nightmare from which I cannot wake.”

  No one bothered to deny it.

  Their progress continued at an interminably slow pace, Campbell’s warm weight pressing harder against Daria’s back. She began to imagine a man like him in a bed, sinking into a mattress. She imagined a man rolling onto his side, his arms going about her—what in heaven was sh
e thinking? But she couldn’t help herself. With his arm around her, his chin on her shoulder now, she’d never felt a man so firmly against her, thigh to thigh, his sex pressed against her back.

  She’d gone mad, that was what. No one could blame her, surely, but only a mad person would imagine such things in this circumstance.

  The day had all but passed when they crested another of what seemed like dozens of identical hills. At the top, Daria gasped softly at the sight of the castle and village in the valley below them. It was a real castle, the sort with turrets and battlements. It looked medieval, as if it had not been touched in five hundred years. It was built on a ledge in the hills, its back against a steep and forested incline. A thick stone curtain wall circled the main keep, anchored by the turrets. A wide bailey with a drive and a tended lawn spread out from the keep, and Daria could see the small shapes of people walking across it.

  Outside the castle walls was a quaint little village, around which were parcels of land, divided neatly for grazing and crops. Dozens of shaggy cattle ate their way through fields of green grass. In the distance tiny spots of sheep dotted the hills. There was a large stable, and a dozen horses milled about in the fenced pasture around it, their tails swishing lazily.

  They started down the path toward the castle, single file, as if they’d done this a thousand times before. They moved into a deep copse of firs that obliterated the sun, then emerged into the sunlight that bathed the clearing around the castle and village.

  As they joined the wide lane that led to the heart of the castle, someone in the fields shouted. With his gaze straight ahead, Duff lifted his fist high above his head. More men began to appear, dropping their tools, moving toward the castle, shouting and running alongside the little caravan of horses that carried Daria and her captors.

  Daria’s heart began to skip. She could imagine being dragged from the horse and . . . and what? Beaten? Strung up? Daria tried to push down her fear by reminding herself the year was 1811, not 1611. No one was carrying a pitchfork or scythe. They might be uncivilized here, but they weren’t so uncivilized as to harm a defenseless woman, were they?