“Lily! What’ve ye done wi’ ma pink ribbon?”
“I’ve no touched yer silly ribbon, Effie.”
“I’ll pull out yer hair if ye’ve ruined it.”
The swish of skirts.
Duncan slowly drew air into his lungs with the power of the muscles in his abdomen.
Slippered footsteps.
“If ye havena got it, then who has?”
“Mebbe ye lost it when ye stopped to flirt wi’ those soldiers?”
“I didna flirt.” Giggle. “I chatted.”
In tiny increments, Duncan released the breath, holding steady to his concentration, steady and still and—
“Aye, ye flirted. Deny it if ye will, but I’ll no be believing ye.”
Another giggle. “There be no harm in flirting, Lily. ’Tis interesting.”
“If yer wishing for something interesting, ye might open a wee book once in a while.” Creak of a chair. Flutter of a page turning. “Both o’ ye.”
“Then we wouldna need the ribbons, nou, would we, Abigail?” Laughter.
Breathe in. Slow, steady, smooth—
“Moira?” Firm strides between the parlor and bedchamber. “What did ye do wi’ the bill from the fabric shop yesterday?”
“We’d do better to be storing up prayers than dresses to help us all find husbands, Sorcha.”
Slow breaths. Seeking serenity. Seeking peace. Breaths as light as feathers yet deep as—
“No one asked ye, Elspeth, so keep yer sermons to yerself.”
“Confess, Lily.” Dainty toe tapping. “Ye hid ma ribbon.”
“I didna, I tell ye. Did I, Una?”
“Dinna drag me into yer disputes.” Chuckle. “I’ve no got the talent for it.”
“Moira, the bill?”
“What’re ye reading anyway, Abby?”
“Byron, that immoral—”
“Byron’s poetry isna immoral, Elspeth. ’Tis romantic.” Waft of fragrance.
“Here be the bill, Sorcha. I sewed the sleeves this morn.”
“Thank ye, Moira.”
Breathe.
“Ma pink ribbon!”
“Told ye I didna take it.”
Deeper.
“Ye’d best stow it away till ye’ve guid cause to wear it, Effie.” Firm steps.
“There willna be new ribbons or dresses or anything else—”
“Till a miracle brings us all husbands.”
“Quiet!”
Duncan’s roar echoed through the tiny flat.
Every light feminine footstep went silent. Not a breath stirred except his own, tight and shallow.
Lily giggled. Or perhaps Effie. His youngest sisters, twins, sounded identical to him, even after eighteen months living under the same roof.
But at home in Castle Eads, with plenty of space and too much work, he’d rarely seen his sisters. He’d rarely seen the chilblains on their hands when the hearths were empty and ice clung to the insides of rotted doors. He’d rarely seen the patches in their gowns, the holes in the toes of their shoes, and the dirt beneath their fingernails from laboring as no nobleman’s sisters should. And he’d rarely seen their hollow cheeks when dinner was nothing more than mutton broth and barley cakes.
But in this miniscule flat he’d brought them to a fortnight ago, he saw everything: the creases on Sorcha’s serious brow, the pallor of Elspeth’s sober face, the dampened hope in Moira’s lovely eyes, the white knuckles of Lily and Effie’s hands holding each other’s tight, the avoidance in Abigail’s hunched shoulders, and the sympathy in Una’s smile.
“Allou a man a moment’s peace, will ye?” He unclenched a hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Will ye take us to the park today, brither?” Beside Effie, Lily nodded encouragingly. His seventeen-year-old sisters were itching to be out and about.
Elspeth crossed her arms. “So ye can ogle the gentlemen there too?”
“There be no harm in ogling, Elspeth. ’Tis what our brither brought us here to do. Get husbands!”
“There’s a wee bit more to getting husbands than ogling, Effie,” Una said, a twinkle in her eye. She lifted a commiserating brow at Duncan.
He loved all his half-sisters, but secretly Una was his favorite. With her serene and ready humor she reminded him most of Miranda.
Fortunately, Una wasn’t a daft fool who’d thrown herself into the hands of a knave and got herself killed.
“Aye, there’s a wee bit more to it,” he said. Damn if he knew what. Back home no men of worth came calling on the poor Eads sisters. There were only farm lads, shepherds, and traveling peddlers. And all of his sisters, friendly as their mother had been, welcomed every man into the castle as though he were a saint. Only Sorcha and Una had any idea of the harm that could come to them.
Lily and Effie were hungering for male attention; he could see it in their bright eyes every time a pair of breeches walked by. And Moira was a prize an ignoble man might steal right out from her own home if he found the opportunity—dowry or not.
He couldn’t have left them at the castle while he came here in search of suitors. So he’d brought them along in the hopes of finding decent men who’d jump at the chance to marry an earl’s sister, however poor.
“I’ll take ye to the park, lass,” he said.
Effie’s brow screwed up. “Dressed like that?”
Behind her open book, Abigail stifled a laugh.
Duncan scowled. He stood and the tunic fell about his thighs. Woven of soft cotton like his trousers, it fit his size far better than anything else he owned.
He moved toward the chamber he’d used as his bedchamber until a fortnight ago. “Outta ma way nou, or I will.”
Giggles followed in his wake. He cast back a wink. Then he closed the door and stared at the feminine garments strewn across the bed that four of his sisters shared now.
In his pocket was a total of seventy-two pounds, all the money he had in the world. After the shearing there would be enough to repair the roof on the castle or to eat over the winter. Until then, he had nothing. He didn’t know a thing about finding husbands, and the men he knew in London were the sort he would never allow near his sisters. The sort that had taken Miranda.
The land was barren, the flocks decimated from plague the year before, famine before that, and overproduction under his father’s haphazard tenure.
Whatever stores of grain and good will there’d once been, his father had lost on unwise investments that his second wife had encouraged him to pursue.
When Duncan had finally gone home a year and a half ago, after nearly a decade’s absence, the place had been in ruin. The bankers had not responded to his pleas. The estate, they said, would never produce. The Eads clan would get no more assistance through honest channels.
There was another option, of course. If he went to Myles and asked for a loan, his former employer would give it to him. But the price Myles would demand for it would be too high. He couldn’t do it. That life was behind him. It had to be. For his sisters’ sake.
He needed air. Now. And sunlight. Anything to shove away memories of those years in dark alleys and dockyards. Those years when all he’d wanted was to forget the pain.
He tore off the tunic and dressed. A soft knock came at the door. Tying his cravat, he opened it a crack. Una poked her head in.
“Brither, ye’ve a caller.”
He frowned. Few knew the location of his hired rooms in London. “Be ye certain?”
“Aye. And Duncan . . .” Una’s blue eyes sparkled. “She’s a bonnie young Sassenach.”
It would have been remarkable if Teresa had not been quivering in her prettiest slippers. Six pairs of eyes stared at her as though she wore horns atop her hat. She was astounded she had not yet turned and run.
Desperation and determination were all well and good when one was sitting in Mrs. Biddycock’s parlor, traveling in one’s best friend’s commodious carriage, and living in one’s best friend’s comfortable town house. But standi
ng in a strange flat in an alien part of town anticipating meeting the man one has been dreaming about for eighteen months while being studied intensely by his female relatives did give one pause.
Her cheeks felt like flame, which was dispiriting; when she blushed her hair looked glaringly orange in contrast. And this was not the romantic setting in which she had long imagined they would again encounter each other—
another ballroom glittering with candlelight, or a rose-trellised garden path in the moonlight, or even a field of waving heather aglow in sunshine. Instead now she stood in a dingy little flat three stories above what looked suspiciously like a gin house.
But desperate times called for desperate measures. She gripped the rim of her bonnet before her and tried to still her nerves.
The sister that had gone to fetch him reappeared in the doorway and smiled. “Here he is, then, miss.”
A heavy tread sounded on the squeaking floorboards. Teresa’s breaths fled.
Then he was standing not two yards away, filling the doorway, and . . . she . . . was . . . speechless.
Even if words had occurred to her, she could not have uttered a sound.
Both her tongue and wits had gone on holiday to the colonies.
No wonder she had dreamed.
From his square jaw to the massive breadth of his shoulders to his dark hair tied in a queue, he was everything she had ever imagined a man should be. Aside from the neat whiskers skirting his mouth that looked positively barbaric and thrillingly virile, he was exactly as she remembered him. In seeing him now, indeed, she realized that she had not forgotten a single detail of him from that night in the ballroom.
But more than his eyes and muscles and all those other manly bits of him drew her. Much more. The very fibers of her body seemed to recognize him, as though she already knew how it felt for him to take her hand. Just as on that night eighteen months ago, now an invisible wind pressed at her back, urging her to move toward him, like a magnet drawn to a metal object. As though they were meant to be touching.
Despite the momentous tumult within her, however, Teresa could see quite clearly in his intensely blue eyes a stark lack of any recognition whatsoever.
3
“Weel?” The single word was a booming accusation. “Who be ye, lass, and what do ye be wanting from me?”
It occurred to Teresa at this moment that she could either be thoroughly devastated by this unanticipated scenario and subsequently flee in utter shame, or she could continue as planned.
An image came to her: herself kneeling at the Reverend Elijah Waldon’s feet, offering his slippers while he sat in his favorite chair before the fire reading from Butler’s collected sermons.
She gripped her bonnet tighter.
“How do you do, my lord? I am Teresa Finch-Freeworth of Brennon Manor at Harrows Court Crossing in Cheshire.” She curtseyed upon legs that felt like pork aspic.
His brow creased. “And?”
“And . . .” It was proving difficult to breathe. “I have come here to offer to you my hand in marriage.”
Silence.
Complete stillness from the man and seven women staring at her.
A book slipped from a sister’s hand and clunked to the floor. “Pardon,” the sister mumbled.
“Why, Duncan, ye old trickster,” another sister exclaimed. “Ye’ve gone an found yerself an heiress to surprise us!”
He swung his head to her. “I’ve no—”
“I’m not an heiress.” It was only the second truth Teresa had spoken in a weeklong spree of creative inventions. She’d told her parents that Diantha had invited her to town for a visit. She’d told Diantha and Tobias that she needed new gowns and that Mama had sent her to London on a shopping lark for both of them. And she’d told Annie she was escaping Mr. Waldon, which actually was the truth.
She stepped forward, her heartbeats atrociously uneven. All eyes turned to her, including his, beautiful and so blue—like the most vibrant autumn sky—
that it was difficult to think.
“I will have a marriage portion,” she said. “But while it is not shabby, it is not by any means a fortune.”
“How much is it?” a sister demanded.
“Sorcha!”
“Dinna be missish, Elspeth. If our brither’s set to wed her, we should all ken hou much money she’ll bring to the family. We’ve anly got one chance at this.” Sorcha’s black hair was pinned tight to her head. Of the seven plain gowns in the room, hers was the plainest.
“Well.” Teresa bit her lip. “I don’t know exactly how much it is. I only know that my mother, who spends far beyond her allowance every quarter, seems satisfied with the amount. So, I—” He took a step toward her, effectively closing her throat with lock and key.
“I’m no set to wed anybody, Sorcha.” He looked directly at Teresa. “As this lass knows.” He tilted his head. “Dinna ye, miss?”
He was so large, his shoulders and arms straining at the fabric of his rather shabby coat and the muscles in his thighs defined in trousers that had probably seen too many seasons.
She was staring at his legs. Her gaze snapped up.
Her breath caught somewhere in the region of her ankles. The slightest crease had appeared in his right cheek.
“You are not set to wed me, of course,” she managed. “But I hope you will consider it.”
A gasp sounded from a sister of no more than seventeen. “Are ye a doxy then, miss?”
“Effie, hold yer tongue,” Sorcha said.
“Dinna ye remember? Mither was always going on an on about Father’s doxies an hou they always wanted him to keep them like little goodwifies in their own houses an such.” Effie brushed a lock of curly hair from her eyes to peer more closely at Teresa. “Mebbe our brither’s more like Father than we kent. Are ye our brither’s doxy, miss?”
“No!” she exclaimed at the same moment the earl said, “No.”
She looked at him hopefully. Hidden within his scowl, a grin seemed to lurk. But she was certainly imagining that. A gentleman would not find such a thing amusing.
“She’s a leddy, Effie,” the sister who’d dropped the book said.
“Hou do ye ken that, Abigail?” Effie challenged.
“She’s no wearing perfume, powder, or baubles,” Abigail said with great sense, Teresa thought.
“Una,” the earl said, “take yer sisters to the park.”
The one that had fetched him, who was about Teresa’s age with eyes like her brother’s, moved toward the door.
“But I want to stay an see what he says,” Effie complained.
“Me too.” This one was near enough in appearance to be Effie’s twin but smiling with an open friendliness at Teresa.
“Duncan—”
“Go, Sorcha. All o’ ye. Go.” He waved them toward the door.
“Come on nou. Ye heard our brither.” Una lifted a brow at the earl. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and returned his attention to Teresa.
Taking up threadbare cloaks and dart-mended shawls, each sister gave Teresa a curious perusal and headed out the door. Then she was alone with the man she had been dreaming of kissing her and touching her for eighteen months. But now that he stood before her, big and muscular and handsome and studying her intently, he was again abruptly a real man and not only a distant fantasy.
“What do ye have in mind, lass?”
She didn’t know what she had expected him to say, but this wasn’t it.
“I—” She cleared her throat. “I told you.” Her palms were so wet that her bonnet was slipping from her fingers. “I have marriage in mind.” And kisses.
And touches of the most intimate sort.
He lifted a hand to his chin and his fingertips scratched the whiskers skirting his mouth. “Yer an odd one to be sure, lass.”
“I am not a lass. I am a lady.”
He swept her figure briefly. She wore her green and ivory pinstriped muslin with the lace collar and tiny sleeves to draw out her mossy
eyes and show off her arms. She had even artfully draped a delicate shawl of cream fringe over her elbows. Earlier when she departed Diantha’s house claiming she was going to the shops she’d felt perfectly fetching.
Lord Eads did not appear impressed.
“Aye.” He nodded. “I’ll no doubt yer a gentleman’s daughter.”
“You needn’t doubt anything I say,” which was certainly a first for her with anybody and felt very odd indeed. “I am whom I have said and I wish only what I have indicated.”
“Anly, hm?” His eyes narrowed. “Lass, a leddy that walks into a stranger’s flat an—”
“You are not a stranger. Not—that is—a complete stranger.”
He tilted his head.
“You saw me at Lady Beaufetheringstone’s ball a year and a half ago.” Fire erupted in her cheeks. “You stared at me. And I . . .” She couldn’t breathe. “I stared at you.”
“Did ye, then?”
“I did. You don’t remember it?”
His brow cut down and he searched her face. Her heart pattered.
He shook his head. Her pattering heart plummeted.
He stepped toward her. Up close he towered. Then he did what she’d been dreaming about for months: He touched her. Fingertips beneath her chin, he tilted up her face and his gorgeous eyes studied her. His touch was strong and firm and he smelled of exotic spices that made her feel heady and so good that her eyelids became heavy and her breaths deepened.
“But yer a bonnie thing,” he murmured.
“I’m glad you think so. I know this is all rather untoward. But . . . will you marry me?”
“I’ll no marry ye, lass. But I thank ye for the offer.”
She swallowed, but her throat was still arched and it was a rocky business.
“Why not? Do you intend to wed a noblewoman, or perhaps an heiress?”
He released her. “I dinna intend to wed anybody.”
“Because you have already been married?”
His brow dipped again but he did not respond.
“I suppose with seven sisters to see wed you’ve no time for yourself until that is accomplished. Is that the reason you have no plans to wed?”
Now he didn’t look amused. “The reason’s ma own.”
How to Marry a Highlander (falcon club ) Page 2
