Seduced by the Scot

by Eaton, Jillian

  But as a woman, especially a woman in High Society whose reputation was constantly being scrutinized, Brynne’s choices were far more limited. Her actions were much more harshly judged. Which was why she’d taken to wearing a smile on the surface, and shivering with cold where no one could see.

  Except for Lachlan.

  “Our father has been exceedingly generous,” she acknowledged. “But I am not a girl anymore, in need of governesses and pretty dresses.”

  Lady Crowley’s mouth thinned. “No, you are a woman rapidly approaching spinsterhood in need of a good husband.”

  “Lord Campbell is a good man,” she said defensively.

  “That may be true. But is he–will he–be a good husband? That is the question you need to ask yourself. Why, your children wouldn’t even be titled.” By the horrified inflection in the dowager countess’ tone, she might as well have said Lachlan and Brynne’s future offspring would be thrown to the wolves upon birth. “Where would you live? To the best of my knowledge, Lord Campbell does not have a permanent residence in London. Or even England, for that matter. How would you maintain your social standing?”

  As Brynne felt her breathing begin to accelerate, she closed her eyes and counted to three. “Perhaps I wouldn’t. Perhaps I’d leave Society altogether. To be a wife to a man that loves me, and a mother to children who, while not titled, shall be adored beyond measure every day of their lives.” Her eyes opened. “Surely there are worse things than that.”

  “If you marry Lord Campbell then all of your training and tutelage will have been wasted,” Lady Crowley said flatly. “Along with all of the sacrifices that your father has made. You must–”

  “He has made?” Brynne had never–not once–interrupted Lady Crowley before, but she refused to let such a bold–and verifiably false–statement stand. “My father has had as much to do with my upbringing as Queen Victoria.”

  “Your father has been through more hardship than you know.”

  She threw out her arms in a rare display of uncontrolled emotion. “Because he won’t tell me! I barely see him, let alone speak with him about personal matters.”

  “It is not a parent’s job to burden their child with their personal heartache.”

  “I know that my parents were separated sooner than they could have ever anticipated, but I am not under any illusion that it was a love match.”

  “I was not referring to the late marchioness,” Lady Crowley said evenly.

  That took Brynne aback. “You’re…you’re not? But–”

  “There was someone else, after your mother. A young woman your father loved dearly.”

  Brynne was stunned. Her father, the epitome of frigid reserve, in love? It was all but impossible to fathom.

  “Who was she? What happened? Where is she now?”

  “That is not my story to share.” Lady Crowley tapped her cane on the floor. “I wouldn’t even say this much, but I feel it is my duty to impart whatever knowledge I can to prevent you from repeating past family mistakes. Your mother and father were an excellent match. One of the best the ton has ever had the fortune to witness. Because your father had the good sense to follow his head instead of his heart. Had the marchioness lived, I am certain they would hold the most celebrated positions in High Society to this day.

  “By the contrary, the woman whom the marquess fancied himself in love with after your mother died was wrong from the start. Had he married her, they’d have risked alienation that would have also affected you, and your brother.”

  “If he loved her, why didn’t he marry her?”

  “I’ve no doubt he would have, if given the opportunity. Thankfully, she had the common sense to return to where she’d come from, and aside from a small scandal, no permanent damage was sustained.”

  “No permanent damage,” Brynne said quietly.

  Except that the Marquess of Dorchester was all but a ghost, preferring to spend his time in his remote hunting cabin or traveling across Europe or setting sail for weeks at a time. Anything other than remaining in England where he’d be forced to interact with his children.

  Was this woman–the one who he had loved and then lost–the reason for his absence? Surely the two were somehow connected. At the very least, it helped shed some light on his prevailing bitterness that she could always sense, even as a child, but could never quite pinpoint the cause of.

  “Lachlan would never leave me.” She squared her shoulders. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “I should hope not, or else what would you do? Trapped in a foreign country, isolated from your family and friends. Shunned by those who once admired you. Pitied by those who expected such great things from you.” Lady Crowley gave her an appraising look, then clucked her tongue. “But at least you will have followed your heart. I shall pray that will be a comfort, when nothing else is.”

  When the dowager countess made a slow, stiff departure, Brynne remained behind to oversee the final waltz. There was nothing she wanted more than to seek her bed, but duty and obligation demanded she stay until the last guest had quit the ballroom.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t a responsibility she had to undertake alone.

  “Everything all right?” asked Weston as he joined her, the cigar smoke clinging to his clothes indicating he’d come straight from the terrace. “You look…unsettled.”

  “Tired,” she said, mustering a wan smile. “Only tired.”

  “It has been a long night. A long month, at that. I’ll be glad to watch the carriages leave in the morning.” He loosened his cravat. “I saw that Lord Campbell decided to finally make an appearance.”

  “And I saw you dancing with Lady Martha Smethwick,” she said in a deft attempt to change to subject, as she didn’t want to discuss Lachlan any further tonight. She couldn’t. Not until she had a chance to sit by herself, and wrap her head around everything she’d learned…and all that she’d been offered. After all, it wasn’t every day that a girl received a wedding proposal ten years in the making and was subtly threatened not to accept it.

  Fortunately, her maneuver worked.

  “What do you think of her?” Weston asked. “Lady Martha.”

  Taller than his sister by six inches, the Earl of Hawkridge had the lean build of a blueblood thoroughbred. His dark hair and gray eyes were the opposite of Brynne’s fair coloring (he took after their father), but the twins shared the same straight nose and stubborn chin.

  “I think she would be a fine wife for the Earl of Hawkridge.”

  “But?” He gave her a tiny bump with his elbow. “Go on, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “But what about a wife for Weston? Do you love her?”

  He started to chuckle. Stopped when she didn’t join him. “Oh. You’re serious.”

  “I do not understand why that is not a requirement when deciding with whom to spend the rest of your life with,” she said with an agitated stomp of her heel.

  “Because…it isn’t important?” he ventured.

  “Not important. Not important. So much is said of titles, and wealth, and estates. But no one ever says anything about love, or commitment, or–or passion. Aren’t those things the most important?”

  Weston regarded her suspiciously. “Have you nipped into the brandy?”

  On a sigh, she dropped her head back to gaze at a chandelier. The candles, over three hundred of them, had all but sputtered out. Those that didn’t extinguish on their own would be doused by a servant, and the entire thing would be taken down on the morrow for a good cleaning, along with the rest of the manor once all of their houseguests had departed.

  “Be a dear and get the stragglers to bed, West. I’m going upstairs.”

  “Glass of water and a cold compress for when you wake up.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “I am not foxed.”

  “Then what are you?”

  In love, she replied helplessly. I’m in love, and I don’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.

  Chapter Fourtee
n

  A night of sleep did not bring the definitive answers that Brynne sought. After she and Weston finished seeing off the last of the carriages, she considered confiding in her brother. It was a rare problem that they did not share. A benefit of being born at the same time…and often only having each other to rely on.

  But it was because of that close bond she knew that Weston’s opinion wouldn’t be all that different from Lady Crowley’s. And while she had the courage to defy her former chaperone, she doubted if she’d be able to do the same with her twin.

  “Are you leaving for London today or tomorrow?” he asked, neatly slicing a knife through the middle of his sandwich. They sat across from each other in the solarium at a table that felt infinitely larger now that it was just the two of them sharing it.

  “Tomorrow,” she replied, absently spearing a pickled beet with her fork even though her appetite left much to be desired. “Or perhaps the day after. There are some things I need to tend to yet.”

  He dabbed at his mouth with a linen napkin. “What sort of things?”

  Even though she understood it was nothing more than idle conversation, her back still stiffened. “This and that,” she said, being purposefully vague. “Not to mention, I’ve yet to begin packing up my art supplies, and that’s a trunk unto itself. I’ll most likely join you at the end of the week.”

  If I join you at all, she thought silently. Her grip on the fork tightening, she stabbed another beet with unnecessary force and it split in half, causing the metal edge of her utensil to clang loudly on the plate.

  Weston sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “If you’re planning what I think you are, you’d best reconsider now, because I won’t stand for it.”

  Her face paled. “You–you won’t stand for what?”

  “Bringing that hellhound into town with us.”

  Brynne breathed a sigh of relief.

  “That hellhound” was her dog, Drufus. An impulsive purchase from a nearby farm (she already had two bassets, Ellie and Emma, who, at ten years of age, spent most of their days napping in the sun), he’d quickly grown from an adorable puppy into an enormous, rambunctious mutt with paws the size of saucers and all the grace of a bull in a china shop.

  For the past two Seasons, she’d attempted to bring him to their manor in Grosvenor Square and the results had been…less than ideal. While Ellie and Emma were content to sleep on a divan in the music room, Drufus had gamboled around the entire house. Chewed shoes, knocked over tables, and dug holes in the garden that a dinosaur bone could fit in had all promptly led to his premature return to Hawkridge Manor.

  Happy to chase the swans in the pond, accompany Mr. Grimsby on his daily rounds, and guard the horses in their fields during the day before sleeping in the barn at night, Drufus was far more suited for the country than the city.

  While she would miss his presence and jester-like personality, Brynne had already decided weeks ago to keep him at the estate. It was where he was the most content. And anymore, he belonged as much to Mr. Grimsby as he did to her. The aging groundskeeper would never say as much, but he absolutely adored the hound and, on more than one occasion, she’d caught him slipping Drufus chicken livers that he’d specifically asked the cook to set aside.

  “No,” she said, smiling. “I am not going to set Drufus loose on the ton this year.”

  “Thank God,” Weston said with feeling.

  It occurred to her then, as it should have before, that if she went to Scotland, none of her three pets would be able to accompany her. Ellie and Emma were too old for such a disruption, and if Drufus were to get loose in the hills and valleys of the Highlands, then she’d never see him again.

  Her position in Society, her family’s goodwill, and now her dogs…what else would she be giving up if she threw caution–and the weight of the ton’s expectations–to the wind and eloped to Gretna Green?

  Oh, a tiny voice whispered. But what will you gain?

  Ellie, Emma, and Drufus were happy at Hawkridge Manor.

  But she wasn’t.

  She never had been.

  Yet if she didn’t leave now, would she ever have the daring to do it later?

  People were loath to abandon what made them comfortable. And she was comfortable in this life, with enough awareness to understand that her perceived difficulties were someone else’s paradise. But that was not an excuse to keep her feet where she’d been planted.

  She thought of an exchange she’d had with the gardener once, when she was young. It was the summer before she met Lachlan. Weston was away touring schools, her father was heaven knew where, and she was–again–all alone.

  After sneaking out early from a lesson, she’d gone to the pond to feed the swans stale breadcrumbs where she discovered the gardener, Mr. Treadwell, tending to a long row of heirloom roses.

  He was weeding, and as she sat on her haunches to watch (a very unladylike position, but what Miss Hardgrave didn’t know wouldn’t get a ruler struck across Brynne’s backside), she’d noticed that he had missed one.

  “There,” she’d said, pointing at a spindly white flower that clearly did not belong amidst the cultured roses. “Should I pull it?”

  “That’s not a weed, Lady Brynne,” Mr. Treadwell had said in his deep, somber voice. He’d scratched beneath his plain cap, and smiled kindly at her.

  “Then what is it?” she’d asked, frowning.

  “That’s a wildflower. A daisy. See the yellow center?” At her nod, he’d gone on to say, “It must have blown in on the wind when it was a small seed and germinated there.”

  “But why don’t you remove it?”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  A secret was a very important thing indeed, and she’d nodded seriously. “Yes.”

  Mr. Treadwell had cupped his hands around his mouth. “Because the daisy doesn’t know it isn’t a rose. And as long as we don’t tell it, it will continue to grow where it was planted.”

  She’d considered that for a moment. “But it’s in the shadow of that rosebush. Wouldn’t it be happier in a wide open field? By the stone wall, or the meadow across the way. There’s plenty of room there.”

  “Maybe,” he’d said. “But if we were to try to move it, there’s a high likelihood it wouldn’t survive the journey. Best to leave it where it is, Lady Brynne. It’s safer here than it would be anywhere else.”

  But as she’d looked more closely at the daisy, and noticed how its leaves were already beginning to wilt, Brynne had wondered if it wasn’t more humane to give it a chance to blossom in the sun than to let it slowly perish in the shade.

  “Weston,” she said abruptly.

  “Yes?” he asked, pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth.

  She pushed her chair back. “I need to blossom.”

  “In the middle of breakfast?”

  “I don’t want to marry Lady Martha Smethwick.”

  Her brother’s dark brow furrowed in bemusement. “I should hope not. Brynne, are you sure you’re feeling well? You still seem…out of sorts. Should I call for Mrs. Grimsby? Or a doctor?”

  “No doctors,” she said as she stood up. “But I will need Mrs. Grimsby. I’m going away, and there are some things I’d like to go over with her before I do.” She took a deep breath. “Weston, I need to tell you something.”

  “I already know,” he said briskly. “And I think it’s brilliant.”

  She stared at him in astonishment. “You–you do?”

  “Yes. I saw your latest painting of the seascape where we went on holiday last year. You’re talented, Brynne. Very talented. And the École des Beaux-Arts is the best in the world. How long is the program?”

  “Six…six months.” He thought she was talking about art school, she realized. The one in Paris that she’d asked her father if she could attend and had yet to receive a response.

  “You’ll miss the Season, then. But there will be others. When do you leave?”

  “Today.” She wet her lips. Half
of her wanted to tell Weston the truth. To confess everything. But the other half of her, the colder, more logical half, recognized this as an opportunity to avoid hurting the two men she loved the most. If Weston knew her real plans, he’d try to stop her. And if he did that, she’d never make it to Lachlan by noon. But this way…this way she could have her proverbial cake and eat it, too, as the Duke of Norfolk had once commonly written in a published letter to Lord Thomas Cromwell.

  When guilt threatened, she tamped it down.

  She wasn’t lying.

  Not outright, anyway.

  And this would grant her the time she needed to acclimate her brother to the idea of his sister eloping with one of his oldest friends.

  Really, she was doing him a kindness.

  “So soon?” he asked.

  “I’ll write you when I get there.” Impulsively, she went around the table to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss his freshly shaven cheek. “I love you, Weston.”

  He twisted in his chair to observe her with a critical eye. “Are you positive that you’re all right? Nothing has happened that I should be made aware of? Someone didn’t say anything untoward at the ball last night, did they?”

  With her mind finally made up, Brynne’s smile rivaled the sun. “I am fine,” she assured him. “Better than fine, I think I might actually be happy.”

  “Now I know you’re feeling off,” he said wryly. “Our family is many things. Happy isn’t one of them.”

  “That, brother dear, remains to be seen.”

  She wasn’t coming.

  As Lachlan prowled back and forth beside the brougham he’d rented to ferry them across the border to Gretna Green, his ungloved hands clenched and unclenched, giving cause for the other pedestrians in the village square to give him a wide berth.

  He looked at the clock tower, and when he saw the time–five minutes past noon–his heart sank all the way down to his boots.