The Last Debutante

by Julia London

  Daria wished for a chaise where she might collapse with the last bit of dignity she had left to her. Her gaze had drifted to his mouth, and she was debating what to say, how to prolong this ridiculous conversation so that she might ask for one more kiss, when Aedus and Anlan’s sudden barking startled her out of her wits.

  “Diah,” Jamie muttered, and followed that with a string of Gaelic as two riders thundered into the bailey ahead of a carriage.

  “I see you have visitors,” Daria said, grateful for the opportunity for a clean escape. “I’ll take my leave—”

  “No,” he said, and caught her elbow in his hand.

  The first rider slid off his horse and, with a grand flourish, doffed his hat and bowed deeply at the waist. He was an inch or two shorter than Daria and twice her width. He looked to be considerably older, as well. Behind him, a slender young woman with fair blonde hair dismounted gracefully and moved to stand beside him, her riding crop firmly in her hand. Daria had the sense that the woman would not be shy to use the crop at a moment’s notice. She did not bow nor curtsy, and seemed entirely too occupied in staring at Daria.

  “Good afternoon, Laird Campbell!” the portly man said. He was English, and Daria felt a moment of panic. How would he regard her being held for ransom?

  “My lord,” Jamie said gruffly. “We were no’ expecting your call.”

  “I can see that,” he said jovially, his gaze raking over Daria. “I beg your pardon for the interruption,” he said to Daria, “but we were showing some friends about the lovely countryside and I had in mind to slay two birds with one stone, as it were. I had heard of your unfortunate accident, Laird, and came to express my hopes for your speedy recovery. And I thought the ladies should like to see an estate as old and authentic as Dundavie.”

  A coachman opened the carriage door and lowered the step, and Daria heard quite a lot of nattering. She knew instantly who it was and watched as Mrs. Gant emerged first from the carriage, followed closely by Mrs. Bretton. “Oh no,” she murmured, earning a look from Jamie.

  “Might we be introduced to your fair companion, Laird?” the fat man asked, eyeing Daria with delight, as one might eye a piece of cake.

  Jamie reluctantly said, “Miss Daria Babcock, may I present Lord Murchison and his daughter, Lady Ann Murchison.”

  “How do you do?” Daria automatically slid into a curtsy. She racked her brain for any knowledge of them, but concluded she had never heard of the lord or his daughter.

  “Look here, Mrs. Gant, it’s our little companion!” Mrs. Bretton trilled as the two women bustled forward. “Miss Haddock!”

  “Babcock,” Daria softly reminded her, extending her hand.

  “Yes, yes, of course, Babcock. You must forgive me; I have a terrible memory for names. My dear, what are you doing here? Does your grandmother live here, in this castle? I understood from Mr. Brodie that her abode was quite plain.”

  “No, she doesn’t live here,” Daria said, and panicked as she glanced at Jamie. What was she to say? An opportunity to escape had presented itself on a silver platter, and yet she felt an absurd moment of hesitation.

  “She can tell us all about her visit and her grandmother over tea,” Lord Murchison said, and smiled broadly at Jamie. “The laird will want to impress our guests with that fine Scottish hospitality he’s so generously shown me. And besides, I have a small proposition for you, Laird.”

  “Have you,” Jamie drawled, his eyes narrowing.

  Lord Murchison laughed. “There’s no call to look so stern,” he said, reaching up to clap Jamie’s shoulder. “A conversation between men, that’s all. Ann, my dear, you must engage Miss Babcock and learn all about her visit to Scotland.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” Lady Ann said, and followed her father as he began to walk toward the keep as if he’d been invited in.

  Daria did not like Lord Murchison. She’d known a handful of men like him, overreaching lords full of their own self-importance. Nevertheless, he was her way out of Dundavie, and she had to decide what she must do.

  “Doesn’t this look imposing?” Mrs. Bretton said, looking up at the keep. “Shall we go in for tea, Miss Haddock?”

  “Babcock, my dear,” Mrs. Gant said. “Miss Babcock. Haddock is a fish,” she explained as the two women walked toward the entrance, leaving Daria behind with the dogs.

  Sixteen

  IF THERE WAS a person on earth whom Jamie could scarcely abide, it was Lord Murchison. He was the worst sort of Englishman, his feelings of superiority quite evident, particularly in the way he attempted to lord over Dundavie as if he had run all the Campbells from the land and taken possession.

  That was clearly his plan.

  Twenty acres, he said in the privacy of Jamie’s study. For twenty acres, he would pay Jamie what he tried to pretend was a princely sum of fifteen hundred pounds. It was a laughable, insulting amount, but Jamie understood the offer. He guessed that Murchison had heard of Hamish’s blunder and knew the Campbell coffers needed an infusion of cash if they were to survive the coming winter. That, coupled with the breach between the Brodies and the Campbells . . . it all made Jamie rethink the letter from Malcolm Brodie.

  He told Murchison no. He was succinct and to the point, and still, Murchison tried to argue. So did his brazen daughter. “Do you understand what we’re offering?” she asked.

  He gripped the arm of his chair to keep from speaking unkindly to the young woman. “I was shot in the leg, no’ the head, lass. I understand you very plainly—you would steal Dundavie from beneath my feet if you could divine a way. Now then, your proposition has been made and rejected. Shall I return you to your guests?” He stood.

  “Very well, Campbell,” Murchison said, standing too, tilting his head back to glare up at him. “If you feel you have the luxury of bargaining with the lives of the few clansmen you have left, then who am I to dissuade you? Pay no heed to the predictions of a harsh winter.”

  “And now you will predict the weather for me, too, will you?” Jamie opened the door.

  Murchison scowled as he went out. So did Lady Ann, her face a younger version of her father’s. Jamie pitied the man who would one day be bound to that one.

  He followed them to the small receiving salon across the hall. Daria was perched on the edge of a settee, her back rigidly straight. She looked as if she were enduring torture. The two Englishwomen—Mrs. Gant and Mrs. Bretton, “tourists of your fine country,” one of them had said—were ogling a very old jewel-encrusted leather sporran that had belonged to Jamie’s great-grandfather. Jamie had hung it on the wall to remind him of the days when wearing the Scottish garb had been forbidden by the English. He hung it there to remind all Campbells that the English would never again tell a Campbell what to do.

  “There you are!” the smaller of the two old ladies said. “We worried you’d not come back for us.” She laughed a little nervously.

  “Pardon, Laird.” Young John was trying to enter the room with a cart bearing the tea service. Jamie moved so that he could push it into the room, the wheels squeaking loudly. Young John stopped the cart in the middle of the room and began to methodically transfer the tea service to a small table in the sitting area as everyone watched.

  “It’s quite an impressive castle you have here!” one of the ladies said. “It looks very rustic and . . . old. It must require an awful lot of upkeep.”

  “Aye,” Jamie said, clasping his hands behind him. How might he politely send this group on their bloody way?

  “Will the work all fall to you?” she asked brazenly. “Lord Murchison explained that your people are all flocking to Glasgow and Edinburgh or even farther afield in search of work.”

  Jamie could feel himself bristle. “He did, did he? No, madam, no’ all my people have flocked,” he said tightly. “Most wish to remain here, where their ancestors lived, and their ancestors before them. If we can manage to keep our grazing lands and no’ allow them to be overrun by sheep, that is.” He looked pointedly at Murc
hison.

  A tense silence followed. Young John poured a cup of tea and offered it to Daria, who shook her head. Her hands were on her lap, curled into small fists.

  The taller of the two women sat next to her and waited for Young John to serve her. “Miss Babcock, you must tell us what you are doing up here in this musty old castle so far from home!”

  Musty? They would call one of the finest examples of a fortress castle in all of Scotland musty?

  “Ah . . .” The color rose in Daria’s cheeks again. Perhaps she was embarrassed to be held in a musty old castle. The lass should consider it a privilege to be held here with her head still attached to her shoulders. Most English who had landed here in centuries past had not been so fortunate.

  “You came all the way from Sussex to see after your grandmother. She must be close by.”

  “No, she . . . I did come to see her,” Daria said. “I was with her, but then . . .” She glanced up at Jamie, and he could see the determination in her eye. He suppressed a groan of exasperation—he knew what she was about to do. Frankly, he had expected it, but he didn’t relish the thought of explaining to another Sassenach how things were done in the Highlands.

  Daria suddenly twisted about on the settee and looked at the woman. “The truth, Mrs. Gant, is that I was brought against my will to Dundavie to be held for ransom.”

  If Daria had thought there would be a hue and cry, she was surely disappointed, for no one spoke. In fact, they all looked at her as if she were mad—save Young John, who continued pouring tea.

  “Ransom!” Lady Ann said with a snort. “You?”

  “Yes, me!” Daria exclaimed, clearly offended.

  Mrs. Gant laughed gleefully. “Oh dear, I almost believed you. Ransom!” She laughed again, giving her sister, who seemed confused, a nudge with her elbow.

  “I am speaking the truth.” Daria looked at Jamie. “He took me from my grandmother’s home against my will!”

  “Miss Babcock,” Jamie said, “you have a delightful sense of humor, I canna deny it. But after last evening’s performance on the pianoforte, I say that you are far better with music than with jesting.”

  “That . . . that was simply a diversion and you know it, sir.”

  He laughed as if she were teasing him. “A very pleasant one, to be sure. By the bye,” he said, turning around to his butler, “Miss Babcock picked some flowers from the garden this morning. I promised her I would have them put in her room. Please see that they are delivered straightaway and replace those from yesterday.”

  “Aye,” Young John said. If he thought his laird had lost his mind of a sudden, he didn’t show it.

  Daria, on the other hand, gaped at Jamie. He could see the realization dawning in her expression—who could believe that she was being held against her will if she were picking flowers and playing the pianoforte? Her brows dipped into a stormy little frown and her eyes glistened in a way that might have felled a lesser man.

  “You’ve had your fun with us, Miss Babcock, so now you must tell us how you are acquainted with the legendary Laird Campbell,” one woman said.

  “Legendary,” Daria repeated, a little too skeptically to suit him.

  “Oh, yes. I am quite certain Lord Murchison will not mind in the least if I am to repeat what he has said of Laird Campbell—that he, more than any Scottish laird, has refused to give over to the new ways of land management and has kept his clansmen very close. You are to be applauded, sir.”

  “That is true indeed, Mrs. Gant. No one has worked harder for his people,” Lord Murchison chimed in, and inclined his head toward Jamie as if he expected to be thanked for his comment.

  “You mean that I’ve worked harder than any other to keep your bloody sheep from overtaking the country.”

  Daria looked from one of them to the next. “What have sheep to do with it?”

  “It’s quite complicated,” Lady Ann said, and sipped the cup of tea Young John offered her. “I rather doubt you’d understand.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Daria said, slowly coming to her feet and fixing her gaze on Lady Ann, “is how a woman—a fellow countryman—tells you all she’s being held against her will and no one seems to have a care.”

  “Goodness, but you’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” Lord Murchison said, his smile gone. “You needn’t say more, my dear, for I suspect we’ve all guessed the truth. And I rather think ransom was not anyone’s guess.”

  The color drained from Daria’s face, and Jamie felt something twist inside of him. Murchison was a master at manipulating words, but that remark was a plain insult.

  “Have a care, Murchison,” Jamie said, moving in front of the smaller man. “Miss Babcock is my guest. Unfortunately, her grandmother was no’ able to make the journey over the hills to join her.”

  “Yes,” Daria said quickly. “And we are to return to her on the morrow. That is what you said, is it not, Laird?”

  Touché. “Aye,” Jamie drawled.

  “But I thought the ladies said the coach let her off on the Brodie lands,” Lady Ann said. “Is it not dangerous for you to be on Brodie lands, Laird?”

  Jamie was on the verge of taking the brash young woman to task, but Daria said, “I think there’s not an inch of Scotland that is dangerous to the laird. As your father said, he is legendary. But how kind of you to be concerned.”

  “You have a good friend indeed in Miss Babcock, sir,” the taller of the old women said. “Are we to have the tour? I should very much like to see the castle.”

  “We really have taken too much of the laird’s time,” Murchison said.

  “Nonsense. You’ve come all this way, aye? My brother, Geordie, will be delighted to show your guests about, my lord.” He looked at Young John and said to him in Gaelic, “Geordie has my leave to make the tour as difficult as he’d like.”

  With a hint of a smile, Young John went out to fetch Geordie.

  “If you will excuse me, then.” Jamie looked at Daria and took pity on her. She’d be picked apart by the Murchison vultures. And frankly, it would behoove him to keep her close, lest she manage to convince them that she’d been kidnapped. “Miss Babcock?” He held out his hand to her, wondering if she would take it.

  He needn’t have wondered—Daria moved so quickly that she accidentally bumped into the tea cart. He smiled and led her out the door.

  “You’ll think on what I’ve said, Laird, won’t you?” Murchison called after him.

  “No’ even for a moment,” Jamie said congenially, and smiled at the ladies. “Good day.”

  Once outside, Jamie put his hand on Daria’s elbow and steered her out of hearing distance. “That went well, aye?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You think yourself so very clever!”

  He laughed softly. “The English lack imagination, leannan. They would never believe you are here against your will.”

  “Well, yes, I realize that now,” she said impatiently. “At least that group of English lacks imagination. But I will think of something, Jamie Campbell. You can’t hold me forever.”

  “Donna fret. I should like this over more than you.” For reasons that were now becoming cloudy.

  “In the meantime, I look forward to seeing Mamie,” she said pertly. “Don’t think you will worm your way out of that promise.” She flounced away in high dudgeon.

  Jamie had to admit, she was really quite lovely when her dudgeon was high.

  Seventeen

  DARIA FUMED FOR the rest of the afternoon, despising Lord Murchison and his daughter for their inexcusable indifference to her plight, and despising Lady Ann for her inexcusably imperious manner.

  She realized that Jamie would likely marry someone just like that wretched woman, and the thought gave her a nauseating little twist. Maybe that was whom he had meant when he said his marriage was all but arranged. Daria shuddered for him.

  Her humor wasn’t improved when she came down for supper and found only Duff within. He saw her hesitation and gestured for her to
enter the room. “I’ll no’ bite you, lass.”

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “Out here and there.”

  While she was forced to dine with the tersest man of Dundavie. That, she thought wryly, was quite a challenge.

  He glanced up at her as if he knew what she was thinking. “Sit.”

  Daria sat.

  Nothing was said through the first course, which Daria found excruciating. When the main course was served and Duff remained focused on his plate, she said, “I suppose the laird and his family are dining with the Murchisons?”

  Duff said nothing.

  “Perhaps the Murchisons are frequent visitors to Dundavie, hmm? After all, what other society is available to them?”

  Duff merely fixed his gaze on her as he stuffed a healthy portion of potatoes into his mouth.

  “If it were me, I would avoid unnecessary society with them. I consider myself a good judge of character, and it strikes me that the laird is quite a bit above that family.” She shrugged as if it made no difference to her.

  Duff paused and wordlessly looked across the table at her.

  She tried to smile. “I realize I am speaking out of turn—”

  “Aye.”

  “I mean well, Mr. Duff. I am speaking to you as a friend who has the laird’s ear. It seems everyone at Dundavie is waiting for the laird to marry and produce an heir, and quite naturally, for that is what lords and lairds do. But I would caution him from seeking a match with Lady Ann. I cannot think he’d be happy.”

  Duff put down his fork. “You are free with your opinions, are you no’?”

  Daria shrugged again. “I’ve never been able to help myself.” Nor could she stop herself from imagining Jamie and Lady Ann, shackled for all eternity by matrimony—

  “Who he might marry is no business of yours, lass. But I can assure you that he’d sooner take his own life than marry an Englishwoman.”