Chapter Ten
Present Day
Hawkridge Manor
With some bemusement, Lachlan shook his head to clear it of old memories and went to gather his horse.
His grandmother, a crafty old crone who’d lived to the ripe old age of ninety, had been of the Old Lore. She’d believed in selkies and sprites and kelpies as clearly as she’d believed in anything, and he’d learned all about the Ghostly Piper of Clanyard Bay, and the dragon that killed the Five Maidens of Dundee (a bloody tale that had kept him up for weeks after its telling), and the haunted ships that sailed along the sea of Solway.
He had also learned–but never fully believed–that fate pulled strings mere mortals could not see, and when a person felt a chill in a warm room, or a prickle on the nape of their neck, or (in his case) a quiver of unexplainable disquiet, it was a harbinger of things yet to come.
Which was bollocks, of course.
He made his own way, his own decisions, and fate had no say in what had passed or what was yet to come.
Breaking that barley stick hadn’t sent him and Brynne on their path to ruin. They’d skipped along miserably enough all on their own. And now it was up to them, not some higher mystical power, to fight their way back through the brambles and the brush.
A groom was waiting to take Aislyn when he returned to the stables, and he handed the mare off after feeding her the carrot he’d kept hidden in the inside of his jacket.
“See that she’s given a good rub down,” he instructed. “With a liniment for her legs. Menthol and calendula, if ye have it.”
“We do, my lord,” said the groom before he led Aislyn, happily crunching on her treat, around the back of the barn to the washing stall.
Going to a nearby trough, Lachlan removed his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and splashed cool water on his face and arms. It was hotter out than he’d anticipated, and with the temperature creeping upwards of seventy, he found himself in need of a good rub down as well.
In more ways than one.
As if his thoughts–wicked as they were–had the power to summon, Brynne appeared, walking out of the barn and into the light with her left hand slanted across her brow and her right holding the reins of a gray gelding.
To his fascination (and appreciation), she wore breeches that clung to her shapely thighs and derriere in such a way that they could have only been custom made for her tall, willowy frame. Her torso was concealed beneath a tweed coat with a high collar and stock tie, and her hair was gathered in a twist beneath a narrow hat that tilted jauntily to the side.
If Lachlan wasn’t already in love, he was fairly certain he would have fallen right there. As it stood, he barely managed to keep his tongue from falling out of his mouth as he pushed away from the trough and sauntered across the freshly raked courtyard.
“Would ye look at that,” he drawled, allowing his gaze to travel across every possible inch of her delectably exposed body. “As I live and breathe, Lady Brynne Campbell is wearing trousers.”
Ducking her head, she glared at him beneath her horse’s neck. “It’s Lady Brynne Weston,” she hissed with a quick, furtive glance behind her. “What are you doing here, Lachlan? Why are you forever turning up where you’re not wanted?”
“That’s the bad penny in me, I suppose.” He pushed his fingers through his hair, combing the thick, unruly mane off his temple as he continued to drink in the sight of his wife in men’s clothing. If this was a new fashion trend, it was one he adamantly supported, unlike the bloody crinoline.
A hooped petticoat made of whalebone or wood, a man needed a damned saw to hack through it…and then there were the half-dozen layers of undergarments to contend with. Brynne’s current attire was much more practical. A few buttons, and he could have her stripped to her drawers in a matter of seconds.
If she was even wearing drawers.
Bloody hell.
Did she have anything on underneath those arse-hugging breeches?
When his tongue threatened to roll onto the ground, he swiped a hand across his mouth and shifted his balance in an attempt to alleviate the sudden snugness in the front of his own breeches. “I just came back from a ride. But I’d be happy tae have another go. Ye should have a companion.”
She gave a small sniff. “As it so happens, I already do.”
Lachlan’s eyes thinned as a man, vaguely familiar with dark hair, gray eyes, and the chiseled features of an aristocrat, came out of the barn holding the reins of a large bay horse.
Make that stumbled out of the barn, he corrected when Brynne’s riding companion staggered over to where she was standing and leaned heavily against his mount’s shoulder.
“It’s too early for physical exercise,” he complained, and when Lachlan heard his voice–a deep, cultured baritone–he instantly connected his face with a name.
“Yer Grace,” he greeted Sterling Nottingham, Duke of Hanover. “Good tae see ye again.”
Squinting at him even though the sun had since gone behind a cloud, Sterling grinned and extended his hand. While Brynne looked on with thinly veiled displeasure, the two men engaged in a hearty shake and obligatory manly back slapping.
“Lachlan Campbell!” Sterling exclaimed once they’d broken apart. “Devil finally dragged you back to civilized country, I see. How long has it been? The last time I saw you–”
“Was here.” He flicked a glance at Brynne, whose expressionless countenance was impossible to read. “For a house party.”
“That’s right. Now I remember.” The duke scratched under his hat, a black beaver top, and gave the brim an absent tug. “Just missed another, mate. Rollicking good fun.”
“Says the guest who spent the majority of the past four weeks sleeping in the parlor,” Brynne put in with an arched brow. “We should begin our ride, Your Grace, if we’re to return before luncheon.”
“But there was something I wanted to ask Campbell. What was it…what was it…” Sterling muttered, tapping his chin with the end of his riding crop. His eyes lit up. “Now I remember! Whisky.”
“Whisky,” Lachlan repeated blandly even as a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Beside him, Brynne sucked in a breath.
“Indeed,” said Sterling, completely oblivious to the cloud of tension that had descended onto the courtyard. “From Glenavon Distillery. You gave a bottle of it to the Earl of Hawkridge, and I’m after one for myself. Name your price.”
Lachlan clearly remembered gifting Weston the bottle. A congratulatory gift for making it through Eton, and a token of the friendship they’d developed both there and during their summers spent together here, at Hawkridge Manor.
“There’s no price tae name,” he said, his apologetic shrug belying none of the strain that simmered right beneath the surface of his amiable façade. “I’m afraid there’s none left of that vintage. The original distillery was started by me great-great-grandfather, Robert Campbell, and abandoned soon after. Only a few barrels survived, and what wasna drunk by the immediate family has since been given away.”
Sterling frowned. “That’s a deuced shame.”
“Aye.” He hesitated, gave another glance at Brynne, who was refusing to meet his eyes. He squared his shoulders. This was his dream, his lifelong aspiration, and he wasn’t going to let himself feel guilty for pursuing it. Not anymore. “But if ye wouldna mind the wait, I should have a new batch come spring. It’s already barreled, and while it willna taste exactly the same, I seeded and grew the barley in the same field my great-great-grandfather used.”
Now Brynne looked at him. With a startled gasp, her eyes widened, and she even took a step towards him before she caught herself. “You did it, Lachlan. You really did it.”
“Aye,” he said, hating that there was bitterness to be had in the accomplishment. “I did.”
“But that’s–that’s splendid. You must be inordinately proud.” She clasped her hands together. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”
He could have let it
pass.
Probably should have, given the company they were in.
But his Scot’s temper was riding high, and he wasn’t of the mind to rein it in.
“Congratulations, is it?” he sneered. “That’s not what ye said before.”
Sterling cleared his throat. “Ahem–”
“It was different before.”
“Was it?” His head canted. “How so?”
“This is not the place for such a conversation,” she said tersely.
He barked out a laugh. “Somehow it’s never the place, is it? Nor the time. If ye dinna want tae admit that ye were wrong, Lady Brynne, simply say as much and be done with it.”
Sterling started to edge backwards. “I’m just going to–”
“I was wrong? I was wrong?” She jabbed her finger at him. “I always wanted you to succeed! Always!”
Lachlan snorted. “Then ye have a damned funny way of showing it.”
“Did you hear that?” Sterling asked. “A nap is calling my name.” Tossing his horse’s reins at Lachlan, the duke bolted out of the courtyard with such speed that little plumes of dust rose in his wake.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Brynne cried.
“Aye, it’s forever me fault, isna it?” When the bay gelding shifted nervously at his tone, Lachlan laid a reassuring hand on the horse’s withers, but his gaze remained hard as he glared at his wife. “How much better yer life would have been if I hadna dared ask ye tae marry me.”
She flinched as if he’d physically struck her. “I have never said that.”
“Some words dinna need tae be spoken aloud.”
“If you’ve come all this way to berate me–”
“I bluidy well didna come here tae hear ye offer me congratulations after ye hoped the distillery would fail!”
“Is that what you think? That I wanted you to fail?”
The genuine shock in her voice gave him pause. “What else was I supposed tae think, when ye asked me tae choose between the distillery or ye?”
“And,” she said fiercely, her wee hands knotting into fists. “I was a new bride, with a new home, in a new country, who wanted her new husband to choose her and his dream. It was never one or the other, Lachlan. Not until you made it that way.”
Something inside of him twisted unpleasantly tight.
Not because he didn’t find truth in her admission…
But because he did.
In his eagerness to make her his bride, he’d blurred the lines between what she needed and what he desired. Shy, uncertain, and–aye–even vulnerable, she had needed solid ground beneath her feet. A stone foundation from which they could start building their life together. A life that her tutors, and governesses, and that fancy school she’d despised, had never prepared her for.
From infancy, Brynne had been raised to rule over a lavish estate with every modern convenience at her disposal and an army of servants to do her bidding. Instead, she’d found herself dropped into the middle of a castle with holes in the roof and straw in the mattresses.
He’d taken her from the lambs and tossed her in with the wolves. And even though she’d gone willingly, wolves were wolves. With sharp teeth and ragged fur and a savage nature. But instead of coddling her, of helping her adjust to her new surroundings and her new pack, he had taken to spending all of his days trying to get the distillery up and running again.
For them.
He had done it for them.
So that he had a means by which to provide her the opulence she was both accustomed to and deserved.
But he could see now, without the hurt and the bewildered anger that had blinded him then, that he hadn’t managed his time as wisely as he should have.
That he had, in the end, forced an untenable ultimatum.
And they’d both chosen wrongly.
“Bry.” Leaving the bay gelding where it stood, Lachlan approached his wife, arms spread apart and palms raised. He slowed when she shook her head. Stopped when he saw the sheen in her eyes. “Bry, I–”
“Congratulations,” she repeated softly. Then tossing the reins over her horse’s head and swinging herself into the saddle in one smooth motion, she gave a kick and galloped out of the courtyard.
As Sterling watched Brynne tear off down the drive from the reclusive safety of the parlor, he whistled low under his breath and muttered, “Poor bloke. Better him than me.”
It was clear that there was history between Brynne and Lachlan.
Even clearer that he did not want to be mixed up in…whatever it was.
He had enough of his own troubles to deal with, thank you very much. He didn’t need to be sticking his nose into matters that didn’t concern him. Especially when a volatile Scot and his best mate’s sister were involved.
After a quick glance into the hallway to ensure there were no servants lingering about, he went to a cabinet in the corner of the room and removed the bottle of gin he’d stashed there before Brynne made good on her promise to lock away Weston’s best liquor.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t touch the stuff. But he needed something to take the edge off his nerves. And since he’d been denied access to the Earl of Hawkridge’s exclusive collection of port and whisky, then cheap gin smuggled in from the local village it was.
“Bloody hell,” he gasped, his eyes tearing after he took a swig and the alcohol burned its way down his throat. “How do people drink this shite?”
“Did they make the tea too hot again?” a feminine voice asked. “I hate it when they do that.”
“Bollocks!” Sterling cursed again when he nearly jumped out of his boots and almost lost his grip on the bottle in the process. What a misery that could have been. Catching the gin before it could fall, he cradled it against his chest like it was a newborn babe as he crossed the room to scowl at the young woman sitting in the middle of a large sofa. Its high back had hidden her from his view when he’d entered the parlor, leaving him to believe that he was completely alone. But it was apparent from the open book on her lap that the girl had been here the entire time.
“This,” he said, thrusting the bottle out for her inspection, “is definitely not tea.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Carefully marking her page with a piece of blue hair ribbon, she closed the book. “Isn’t it a tad early in the day to be drinking spirits?”
Sterling scowled. First she’d nearly given him an attack of the heart, and now she was judging him?
Just who did this impertinent chit think herself to be?
Gray eyes narrowing, he took a closer look while she smiled at him in an expectant manner, as if she were waiting for him to say something, but he was damned if he knew what it was.
She was pleasing enough to the eye, but there was nothing about her heart-shaped face or plain brown hair that would make her stand out in a crowd of prettier, more exotic beauties. Which probably explained why she was hiding in the parlor with her nose in a book. In Sterling’s experience, wallflowers–which this woman definitely qualified as–were like furniture that no one used.
There was nothing wrong with the furniture, per se.
But there was a reason it was shuffled to the rear of the room to collect dust while brighter, flashier pieces were displayed out front for everyone to admire.
Tilting the gin to his mouth, he indulged in another sip and immediately regretted his decision. God, but it really was bottom of the barrel, wasn’t it? Which, coincidentally enough, was exactly where he found himself. Shuddering, he set the bottle aside on a table and crossed his arms.
“Have we met?” he asked.
Her smile faded. “Yes, Your Grace. In this very room, in fact.”
“Are you sure?” he said, frowning.
“You asked me to bring you a cup of coffee.”
“Ah, you’re a servant, then.” Which explained that hideous potato sack of a dress she was wearing. The color of a sock that had gotten lost underneath the bed for the better part of a week, it was doing her comple
xion no favors. Or her curves, for that matter. If she even had any. The tan gown was so ill-fitting and had so many bows stitched onto it that she could have been flat as a board or hiding an elephant underneath her skirts. It was anyone’s guess. “Shouldn’t you be doing”–he gestured around the room–“servanty things?”
“I am not a servant.” Her brows, a tad lighter than the mousy brown of her hair, drew in over her nose.
It was, Sterling noticed with detached interest, a very comely nose. As far as noses went, that is. Straight and delicately shaped, it was centered right above a mouth that was heavier on the top than the bottom and curved in the shape of a cupid’s bow.
“Who are you then?” he asked, his frown deepening as he dragged his gaze up from her lips.
Her fingers curled around the book on her lap. “You really don’t remember?”
Sterling racked his brain. Truth be told, the last few weeks were all a bit of a fog. Too much drinking, too much guilt, and not enough sleep were not a recipe conducive to a clear head and sharp memory.
“No,” he admitted. “But you shouldn’t take it personally.”
“You…you called me a sweetheart,” she said in a hushed, fluttery voice, as if she were admitting to some deep, shameful sin.
His mouth quirked. “That does sound like me.”
“Rosemary. Miss Rosemary Stanhope.” She searched his gaze. “Does that ring a bell?”
“Ah…”
Rosemary’s sigh was resigned, as if people being unable to recall her name was a regular occurrence. “Evelyn and Joanna Thorncroft’s cousin.”
“Yes!” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. You’re the cousin.”
While this Miss Rosemary Stanhope only stirred the vaguest of recollections, he knew who Evie was without any prompting. He’d even tried to seduce the stunning American into being his mistress. Or his wife. Whichever she preferred. Admittedly, it hadn’t been his best effort–he was foxed to the gills at the time–and she’d gently turned him down. The last he had overheard, she was engaged to Weston, the lucky sod.
Seduced by the Scot Page 11
