“Oh!” April’s face colored. “You ill-mannered git!”
“Leave her be, dear.” Lady Clarice placed a hand on her daughter’s arm. “She will be leaving us soon enough.”
“Not by cracking bridges or hurled urns, I won’t be.” Melissa saw no reason not to speak her mind. “Nor whatever else you might dream up for me.”
This time two spots of crimson appeared on Lady Clarice’s cheeks.
“You do not mean such absurd accusations, Melissa. We all want the very best for you. Why else would I have gone to such extremes to receive invitations to the Merrivales’ upcoming ball in London?”
Melissa looked at her, felt the floor tipping beneath her feet.
“London?” She frowned. “Isn’t it too early for a ball?”
“Must you be so contrary?” Her stepmother dismissed her questions with a wave of her hand. “The Merrivales are merchants, they do as they please.”
“Perhaps I please to stay here?”
Melissa’s mind raced. She hadn’t been outside Cheltenham in ages, and certainly not to a ball, formal dinner, or whatever. Her stepmother went to great trouble keeping her away from social engagements.
Not that she minded.
She’d rather spend an evening curled up in a wing chair before the fire in Cranleigh’s library, nothing but the crackling of the flames and the turning of pages to keep her company.
Leastways, that would have been her wish when the house still possessed a library.
Now…
She frowned, feeling hollowed.
“I see you are overjoyed.” Lady Clarice advanced on her. “And you should be. Sir Hartle will be in attendance and all eyes will be on the two of you.”
“Sir Hartle…” Melissa’s heart sank.
“The gentleman, indeed.” Her stepmother smiled. “He is coming expressly to pay court to you.”
“Then you had best leave me here,” Melissa returned. “I will shame you otherwise, for I will go nowhere near him.”
“We shall see.” Lady Clarice’s eyes narrowed on her. “You do not want to vex me.”
I do that just breathing.
“And you, Lady Clarice, do not want to anger me,” she said aloud, thanking the old Highland gods for letting her inherit her mother’s courage. “If I go with you, I shall have my own reasons for doing so.”
And she did.
If she could manage it, a stay in London might allow her to meet again with Mr. Alan Steckles, the owner of Crickhollow Farm in Kent. She’d already given him a sizeable sum to provide a temporary home to her rescued carriage horses. Five of the twenty aged steeds had already been secreted at Crickhollow. It was her hope that the rest could be slipped away before her stepmother or her half-sisters noticed.
For a bit more coin, the farm owner might work faster.
“If you’re thinking of having someone sneak off with more of those wretched nags while we’re gone, you will be sorry,” Lady Clarice said, dashing Melissa’s hope.
“The horses are mine, cared for with my money.”
“They will bring more money when I sell them to the German merchant interested in them.” Lady Clarice leaned toward her. ‘He will have them sailed to Hamburg where they’ll fetch a good price at the market.”
“Germans love horsemeat,” April added, smiling.
“They will not dine on mine.” Melissa would not allow it.
But now her hand was played. She’d have to move fast to save her darlings – and herself, it seemed.
How sad that she didn’t know where to begin.
Chapter Three
The Merrivale townhouse
London, several weeks later…
“The lass ye seek be in the cloakroom.”
Angus Lucian Duncan Forbes MacRae, now styled the Black Lyon and Laird of Lyongate Hall in Scotland, peered at the tiny old woman who’d spoken.
He blinked once, then again.
He couldn’t help himself for she looked as out of place in a posh London townhouse as he felt in his full Highland regalia. Proud accoutrements he’d insisted upon wearing. Secretly, he hoped his kilt unsettled the fops, dandies, and other swell-heads who populated the night’s rout.
It took a real man to swagger about in a kilt.
As such, he wasn’t pleased to have his path blocked by a wizened female.
Garbed in black except for the red plaid laces adorning her boots, she could’ve been a cailleach in the wild, heather-kissed glens he missed so much.
She also had a wicked gleam in her bright blue eyes. The way she stood before him, her knotty hands on her hips and her grizzled chin lifted, proved she possessed enough spirit to be such a crone.
Biddies who loved to meddle.
A shame no one told the Black Lyon what to do. He wasn’t his uncle, and, for sure, he wasn’t his father. He walked his own path in life and recognized he’d erred in leaving his Highland home to seek answers in London. Sure, he’d tended some business matters.
New buyers contracted for good Lyongate wool.
Still…
Scottish matters were best managed on Scottish soil. And Lyongate called to him so strongly, his heart ached on every bluidy beat.
“She be waiting for ye, laddie.” The crone jabbed him with a crooked finger. “There, where I said. In the cloakroom.”
Lucian frowned. “I am no’ after finding a lassie.”
He wasn’t.
His reason for attending this crush was to announce his return to Lyongate Hall in northern Scotland. It was a journey he’d make alone, without a title-grasping, blow-away-at-the-first-rush-of-Highland-wind English wife. He was weary of London and even more tired of its residents.
Just now, he’d wanted to escape into the garden. He needed air that wasn’t tainted by stale perfume and smoke that, regrettably, didn’t hold an earthy-sweet tinge of peat.
Annoyed that the crone had waylaid him, he glanced at the cloakroom door. No scheming miss hidden within was going to use a cheeky Highland cailleach to trap him.
Turning back to the crone, he started to tell her so only to discover she’d vanished.
Lucian frowned, sure he hadn’t heard her scuttle away.
Yet the corridor loomed empty. All that stirred was the glimmer of candlelight in the wall sconces and the silvery moon glow spilling through a few tall, narrow windows.
Lucian glanced again at the cloakroom, his nape prickling when he saw that the door stood ajar.
A moment before, it’d been closed.
Eerie silence leaked from the room’s shadows and – he could scarce believe it – along with the quiet came the blessed scent of peat.
Sure the cailleach was up to mischief, he pushed open the door and entered the dimly lit, plaid-draped expanse that could never be the cloakroom of a townhouse belonging to a London merchant.
Tartan reigned, decking the walls, hanging at windows, covering tables, and gracing every chair. The colors were a clever blend of light and dark purples mixed with silver and black, so that he’d almost felt whisked home to his much-missed hills at gloaming.
A peat fire smoldered in the hearth, the sweet-smelling smoke piercing his heart.
Then the candlelight flickered and the plaid trappings vanished, leaving an ordinary English cloakroom.
Except now, a young woman stood at one of the windows.
Lucian narrowed his eyes at her, sure he’d never seen a more fetching lass. She wore her chestnut hair unbound, the unusual style making him wonder if she’d done so as a rebellious statement, much as he’d donned his finest kilt and regalia.
Either way, her tresses rippled to her waist and the strands gleamed in the moonlight. The sweet curve of her hips beckoned, and the lush fullness of her breasts made his thumbs ache to brush over the tips.
He also recognized her, having overheard a viper-tongued lass call her the Frost Maiden.
Lady Melissa Tandy, a dishonored heiress who’d gained notoriety by vowing she’d spend every inher
ited coin on a refuge for aged coach horses, not sharing a penny with her stepmother and half-siblings.
Gossips claimed ice ran in her veins and her cold heart thawed only for animals.
To him, she looked so delectable that a fierce heat ignited inside him. He strode over to her, drawn by a force he’d never felt.
“Lady Melissa.”
She turned, her eyes widening. “You know me?”
His smile flashed. “I do now.”
She frowned. “But we haven’t met. How can you-”
“Lady, I will no’ lie,” he said. “I overheard someone praise your beauty.” He altered the truth, not wanting to offend her. Indeed, everyone present should praise her looks.
She was stunning.
He smiled. “Your name was mentioned.”
“I see…” She didn’t appear convinced. “I believe I know you, too, and for the same reason. You’re the Black Lyon.”
“Lucian.” He stepped closer, bowed slightly. He had an overpowering urge to toss her over his shoulder, carry her up a turret stair, and ravish her all night, leaving no inch of her unexplored.
“Lord Lucian.” She smiled, disproving the tales of ice. “Laird of Lyongate Hall.”
“You ken my home?” Lucian’s heart thudded, madness upon him for he could see them in the heather, on his plaid, naked and sweaty.
“My mother was Scottish.” Her voice turned wistful. “I always dreamed of-”
“Visiting the Highlands?” Lucian’s mind raced ahead, seeing them walking the moors, older and with children. Now he knew he’d run mad, but he didn’t care.
She was the lass he’d been seeking.
The look she gave him proved it. “Are you inviting me there?”
“I am.” He took her hand, kissing her fingers. “You’ll fall in love with Scotland.”
She smiled. “I believe I already am.”
“I am no’ surprised.” He looked down at her, spellcast by the way her eyes glistened in the moonlight. “There is a magic about Scotland. Many dream of going there and they do so with a passion that shocks even them. Then, once they set foot there, they are forever enchanted, and when they must leave, their hearts never stop aching to return. That, dear lady, is the way of it.”
“The magic of your Scotland?”
She held his gaze and he felt a very different kind of enchantment spill through him, clear to his toes.
“Aye,” he said, aware of the fast beat of his heart. “And you’d feel such enchantment even more so in the Highlands.”
She laughed, a delight that again disproved her icy reputation. “You could be my mother.”
He couldn’t stop a chuckle of his own. “The gods forbid.”
“I meant she used to say such things.” She glanced aside, looking out the window at the Merrivale gardens. It was dark now, but a gravel walkway shone white between clipped hedges, the pebbles catching the light from the house. “She always missed Edinburgh, but she was particularly fond of the Highlands.
“I have to ask…” She spun back to him, a slight crease in her brow. “Why did you say ‘the gods?’”
“Ah, well. Did your mother ne’er tell you that an ancient Celt dwells inside every Scot?” He leaned toward her, lowering his voice as if revealing a great secret. “It is quite true. We’re all wild pagans at heart.”
“You haven’t forgotten the old ways.”
“So it is.” He straightened and folded his arms. “Was your mother any different?”
“I was fairly young when I lost her, but I do remember…” She glanced again at the garden path, her smile returning. “She used to leave biscuits and milk in the rose garden on full moon nights, claiming faeries would come to dance and that they’d appreciate the refreshments. And,” – her eyes lit – “on Beltane morning, just before sunrise, she’d go up into the hills behind Cranleigh, our home, and wash her face in the dew on the grass. She-”
“She swore it would keep her young and beautiful.”
“How did you know?”
Lucian chuckled again, feeling younger himself. “My mother, this time. She did the same thing.”
“I do it, too.”
“You, sweet, have no such need of Beltane dew, though I am glad to hear that our ancient ways are honored so far beneath the border.” In truth, her revelations made his heart swell. “I would no’ have believed it.”
“It is important to have faith in magic,” she said, her tone wistful. “At times…”
“It is all that keeps us going?” He guessed.
She nodded. “It was magic that led me in here. At least, I think so.”
Lucian lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“You won’t laugh if I tell you?”
“To be sure, nae.”
She hesitated. “You might think I’m crazy.”
“If anything, I’d say you are daring.” He allowed himself the pleasure of smoothing his knuckles down her cheek. “Any lass bold enough to attend a ball with her hair streaming down her back, has fire in her heart, not bats in her head.”
To his surprise, twin spots of color appeared on her cheekbones. “I did that on purpose,” she admitted, the blush deepening. “My hair had nothing to do with coming in here. I saw something…” She paused, drew a breath. “I will tell you, but you must keep it to yourself.”
“Of course.” He placed a hand over his heart. “You have my solemn word.”
“Well, then.” She stood straighter. “I was looking for a place to escape the crush and nipped into a seemingly quiet corridor. The one outside this cloakroom. But when I turned a corner, I almost collided with an old woman.”
She looked at him then, and it was all he could do to keep from asking if the woman was black-garbed and grizzled.
But he preferred to hear that from her – if indeed they’d encountered the same crone.
“Did she speak to you?” That was all he cared to say.
“No, not one word. She didn’t even look at me.”
“Yet you believe she drew you in here?”
She nodded. “It was the strangest thing…”
When she paused again, this time glancing down, Lucian captured her chin and tipped her face to his.
“Dinnae forget I’m a Highlander.” He released her chin and held out his arms, turned in a slow circle. “It’s no’ hard to see, given my kilt and such.
“Keep that in mind, lassie.” He stopped then, once again folding his arms.
“I will.” She waved a hand at the window. “It’s a full moon night. I might only have seen a moonbeam.”
“You dinnae believe that.”
She glanced at the door. “No, actually, I do not.”
Lucian went to peer into the shadowy corridor. “No one is about, not a soul will hear you,” he said, closing the door. “So tell me what happened?”
“The old woman was bent over,” she began, pacing back and forth in the little room as she spoke. “It was hard to see what she was doing because she was all in black, even wearing a hooded cloak. But I thought she was tying her shoelaces.”
“Her shoelaces?”
She nodded. “I did catch a glimpse of a small black boot peeking out from the hem of her cloak.”
“So why did an old woman adjusting her boot’s laces make you come in here?”
“That’s just it – she did.”
Lucian frowned. “She was in here?”
“Yes, I mean no.” Her brow pleated. “She just looked like she’d come in here.”
“I see.” Lucian stroked his chin.
“No, you don’t.” She stopped pacing and set her hands on her hips. “Whatever she was doing, she was right ahead of me in the corridor. When she straightened and kept on, I saw a red plaid shoelace on the carpet. Naturally, I picked it up and followed her, thinking to return it to her. But then…”
“She came in here?”
“That’s what I thought. But…”
Lucian knew. “When you entered to
look for her, she wasn’t here.”
She nodded. “Yes! That’s exactly how it was.”
“Let me see the lace.” Lucian hoped she wouldn’t answer as he expected.
“That’s the weirdest thing,” she said, just as he’d guessed. “As soon as I stepped in here, I was no longer holding the red plaid shoelace. It was gone. I looked everywhere to see if I’d dropped it, but I didn’t find it.”
“Och, it’ll be about somewhere.” Lucian went over to her, set his hands on her shoulders. “Dinnae fash yourself, lassie. Think of the shoelace as a gift.”
She blinked. “A gift?”
He smiled. “Highland magic, if you prefer.”
“You truly believe?”
“My ancestors would come after me in the dead of night if I didnae,” he said, deepening his burr. “They’d ride a swirl of Highland mist clear into the heart of this great Sassenach city and scold me as I sleep.”
“Is that so?”
“True as I’m standing here.”
“You, sir…” She tilted her head and twirled a length of her glossy red-gold hair around her fingers. “You are teasing me.”
“Nae, I’m admiring your great blue eyes.”
He was.
She did have remarkable eyes. They were long-lashed and a deep sapphire shade that did terrible things to the inside of his chest. His heart raced and he felt all his resistance to anything English being ripped away. He also strove to ignore what looking into her eyes did to him a bit lower down.
Beneath his kilt, the gods help him.
“Now you flatter me.”
“Far from it,” he denied, more glad than ever for the ‘shield’ of his sporran. “I speak the truth.”
“But you do not believe me about the old woman and her red plaid shoelaces?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I saw her, too?”
“Did you?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But forget the crone. We are alone now.”
He drew a deep breath, wondering why he didn’t admit his encounter with the strange old woman. Why he didn’t also tell her about the cloakroom’s transformation. How he’d strode in here only to find himself in a fantastical world of tartan and all the wonder of a Scottish gloaming, complete with a haze of fragrant peat smoke.
A Rake Like No Other (Regency Rendezvous Book 12) Page 3
