by Tracy Fobes
He couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer.
When word had come of the duke’s imminent arrival, however, he’d abandoned the ledgers and those negative thoughts in favor of a glimpse of the duke’s so-called daughter.
The duke’s dogs, two setting spaniels who could scent a pheasant from a mile away, had spent the day lounging in the study with him. Now they had their noses stuck out the window, which Colin had opened earlier for fresh air. Jostling the dogs aside for the best position at the sill, Colin narrowed his eyes as he tried to identify the newest family member.
His gaze passed over the duke and Phineas Graham rubbing their backsides. He studied the driver, who was directing footmen as to the disposition of luggage, before examining a serving wench. He could only see her from the back; nevertheless, he took a second to appreciate her tiny waist and the fine curves, evident through the dirty old rags she wore. Even her tangles of black hair held promise.
Smiling, he decided his forced vacation in the Highlands could prove more interesting than he’d imagined. It wasn’t his usual habit to involve himself with a backstairs wench, due to their differences in station, but he’d made exceptions in the past and had invariably discovered that maids take direction rather well, and had an eager attitude no matter what he asked of them.
His mood improving by the moment, his attention veered away from the wench to search the rest of the yard for a “daughterly” figure. Finding no one, he decided the duke’s daughter must still be sitting inside the carriage.
Just then, the serving girl turned around. A small red animal stirred in her arms. A fox, he realized. A live version of the muff he’d bought Lady Helmsgate.
“What in hell . . .” Colin rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing properly. The dogs, stationed on either side of him, began to growl.
“Easy Cheltnum, Townsend,” he muttered.
Movement in a thicket of gooseberries on the far side of the carriage caught his attention. His eyes narrowing even more, he struggled to make sense of what he saw: antlers, a large brown body . . .
Christ Almighty, a stag. Standing there on the edge of the carriageway, watching the proceedings just like he was. The stag was mostly hidden, but Colin’s vantage point in the library allowed him a view through the thinnest portion of the vegetation. He doubted that the duke or anyone else near the carriages could see it.
Cheltnum, his white-and-red coat bristling, gave one sharp bark before stiffening into a pointer stance, his head faced in the direction of the stag.
“I see it, old boy,” Colin murmured. “I wonder what’s wrong with it, that it would come so close to the house.”
Cheltnum’s tail wagged briefly, as if in response.
Colin transferred his gaze back to the carriage. Stag aside, the duke’s new daughter had yet to appear. When did she intend on alighting? Tomorrow? What was keeping her?
Townsend, the other dog at his side, suddenly stiffened into a pointer stance as well, but its head faced in a different direction than Cheltnum’s. Brow furrowed, Colin followed the dog’s lead and discovered another small body hiding in the brush, this one black with a telltale white stripe down its back.
“A skunk,” he breathed. “We’ve an animal convention on our hands.”
Townsend whined, long and low.
Mystified, Colin turned toward the door. Were raspberry leaves so tender, that a skunk and a stag would put themselves in danger to munch upon them? He didn’t think so. Still, why else would they be skulking around the raspberry bushes edging the lawn? He sat his glass of claret upon a side table.
As he approached the door, the dogs scrambled at his heels, then charged forward. Clearly they were eager to escape outside and chase down the interlopers. He grabbed their collars and hauled them back to the hearth.
“Stay, Cheltnum,” he ordered. “You too, Townsend. Stay.”
Whining, their eyes very dark and fixed intently on Colin, the dogs sat back on their haunches.
“Don’t disappoint me,” he warned, then slipped out of the study and closed the door on them. He’d gone no more than five paces down the hall when he heard them scratching on the wood and yipping. Mouthing a few choice oaths at the disobedience of some dogs, particularly spoiled ones, he walked into the main hall and prepared to greet the duke and his new daughter.
The main hall was an imposing room indeed, whose ceiling towered to the full height of the castle and was painted with the shields of all the various members of the Clan Campbell. When he’d walked through this room yesterday, for the first time in over a decade, Colin had felt his Scottish roots keenly, and with it, guilt at how long he’d neglected the Highlands. What kind of Scotsman was he, forgetting his clan in favor of fucking and gambling?
The best kind, he’d told himself with a grin, and promptly dismissed the guilt.
Until now, that was. Guilt had come sneaking back up on him like a wretched cur, making him wish he wore a kilt rather than his fine, tailored, and very English breeches. Before he’d had too long to castigate himself, however, another footman opened the front door and announced the arrival of His Grace, the Duke of Argyll.
Colin promptly rearranged his posture to one of attention and respect, for he did love the duke and all the old man had done for him. When the duke walked in a few seconds later, his face bearing a few wrinkles that Colin hadn’t noticed before and his hair a shade or two whiter than Colin remembered, a sense of lost time knotted in Colin’s throat like a bitter draught of ale.
“Welcome home, Mac Cailein Mor,” he said, using the duke’s Scottish name of highest rank.
The duke smiled, but it was a weary, disillusioned smile. “Ah, Colin, I wondered if you would come.”
Stung, Colin frowned. “Of course I came.”
“Good. I have need of you.” Without waiting for Colin’s response, he turned toward the door. As if on cue, Phineas Graham walked through the portal with the petite serving wench on his arm. Her dress was even raggedier close up. Fox in hand, she looked as though she’d been hitched onto the end of a plow and dragged through a field.
Disappointment tinged Colin’s first thought: Phineas has already claimed her. More’s the pity.
Surprise tinged his second thought: He’s rather bold, bringing a maid whom he’s diddling right into the main hall. Phineas had always been a fussy man of the utmost sense of propriety.
Shock tinged his third and final thought: Good God, she’s not a serving wench at all!
“My daughter, Sarah,” the duke said, his smile becoming gentle, loving, full of pride . . . the smile of a doting father. Colin had never seen such vulnerability in the duke’s expression before.
He swiveled to look at the girl. She frowned, perhaps resenting his scrutiny, and he saw at once how very dark her eyes were, not black but a strange shade of blue, almost purple.
She was very small, her face cat-shaped and her nose tip-tilted. Her skin looked brown, the mark of a farm girl. If any lady in London had ever possessed such burned skin, he mused, she would have walked around in a mask. And yet, her complexion did little to hide an odd, unsettling sort of beauty. Aware that he was standing there openmouthed, he attempted a greeting.
“Very nice to meet you, ah . . . Lady Sarah, the duke has spoken of you —”
A movement near the end of the hall caught his eye. A footman stood outside the study door, his ear cocked. Listening. Seconds later, he grasped the doorknob and turned.
“No!” Colin shouted, but it was too late.
Townsend and Cheltnum barreled out the doorway. They pelted down the hallway with a cascade of enraged howls.
A blur of red flashed by him on the right. The fox, he realized, had jumped from the girl’s arms. A quick glance at her confirmed that her mouth was open in an oval of surprise. Or fright. Probably both.
“Bloody dogs,” he growled, and lunged toward the part of the hallway that opened onto the main hall, in an attempt to block the dogs’ advance. They jumped nim
bly around him and skidded into the main hall with all the vigor of two hounds from hell. Their nails made a scratching sound across the marble floor.
“Cheltnum, Townsend, heel,” the duke shouted, to no avail.
Snarling and baying, the dogs charged at the fox, sending him straight up the furniture. The fox began pelting around the room like a mad thing, jumping from table, to chair, to shelf, with the dogs hot on its little red heels. The dogs leaped at least three feet into the air, even twisting while in midair to get after their quarry. It was an inspired effort, and if circumstances were different, Colin might have applauded.
The footman who’d allowed the dogs to escape hurried into the hall, wringing his hands and hurling apologies at the duke. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but they were scratching on the door, and I didn’t want any accidents to occur in your study.”
“Grab them, then,” the duke ordered. “Phineas, help him!”
The girl, her face growing whiter than her brown complexion allowed, suddenly pulled a flute from her pocket. Shocked, Colin watched her lift the instrument to her lips and begin to play. Not only had she little talent — the tune was utterly discordant — but he couldn’t believe she chose to play music just as a foxhunt had commenced in the great hall.
Thinking her daft, he circled around in the opposite direction Phineas took, hoping to corral the dogs between the two of them. They were still jumping up on their hind legs and barking viciously at the fox, who had shimmied up to a shelf bearing a priceless Ming vase.
When Phineas, his face a mask of distaste, drew close enough to grab Cheltnum’s collar, he lunged at the dog. As the fates would have it, the dog chose that moment to back down and skirt two paces to the left, perhaps to get a better angle at the fox. To Phineas’s credit, he realized his attack would fall short and he stretched mightily, elongating his body in midair, despite the fact that a miss would leave him flat on his face.
But the angle of Phineas’s attack had unexpected results. The duke’s man of business landed square on the dog’s back, drawing a frightened yelp from the purebred. Like a squirrel with a piece of tin tied to its tail, Cheltnum reared away from his attacker and pelted around the hall, Phineas holding on to his withers and scuttling across the fine marble floor.
Colin sprinted after Phineas. The girl continued to play her panflute. And the duke shouted at the footman, his voice entering the realm of panic.
“Open the door, for God’s sake. Let the fox out, before the dogs kill one of us!”
The Ming vase fell to the floor with a splintering crash as the fox flung itself toward a wall sconce and sprawled expertly between its golden arms.
Scurrying, the footman made it to the door and yanked it open just as Phineas, his arms still locked around Cheltnum, skidded to a halt at the threshold. And yet, the entrance was not clear as they’d all expected. A skunk — probably the same one he’d seen from the library window, Colin realized — had frozen into a position of outrage on the other side.
The dog stopped short, and Phineas with him. The three of them stared at each other. Two seconds later, the skunk had turned around. Colin squeezed his eyes shut. He had enough sense left to guess what was coming. Phineas’s high-pitched shout, mingling with the dog’s squeal, bolstered his fears. The stink of skunk spray erased the last of his doubt.
Truly frightened, Colin slowly opened his eyes.
Phineas had dropped to the floor and was clutching his face. Cheltnum began to hop around the room, shaking his muzzle, circling madly. Colin tried to lunge out of the dog’s way, but he didn’t move quickly enough. Cheltnum bumped him in the legs so hard that Colin nearly fell over.
For her part, the girl played even more loudly on her flute. She wasn’t daft, Colin thought wildly, but rather an agent of chaos. The skunk, evidently the wisest of them all, disappeared down the steps and back into the brush.
“Enough, I say,” the duke thundered. “Enough!” He strode forward and cuffed Townsend on the withers, drawing a yip from the dog.
Townsend cringed and skulked away from his master.
“Chase that other stinking dog out the door, now!” The duke gestured angrily at the footman, who herded Cheltnum toward the front door with a series of well-placed nudges.
Clearly seeing an opportunity, the fox hopped down from his perch and landed on a display case housing Rob Roy’s dirk handle, among other treasures. He made it to the marble floor and started toward the girl’s arms.
Both Townsend and Cheltnum froze when they saw the fox. Cheltnum, still shaking his muzzle, glanced uneasily at the duke. The fox froze as well.
“Don’t you dare,” the duke breathed.
The girl played a quick little melody on her flute. Colin had the odd sense that she was adding her own warning to the duke’s. A few seconds passed as they all waited to see if the dogs would obey.
They didn’t.
Another volley of baying and growling filled the center hall. Both dogs lunged after the fox, who turned sharply and raced up the staircase. The duke shouted after them, but this time, the dogs were obviously determined beyond the point of reason to have their quarry. Perhaps it had become a matter of pride, perhaps they knew they had nothing left to lose. Whatever the case, Cheltnum and Townsend tore up the stairs and disappeared into the upstairs hallway.
“Great God in heaven,” the duke shouted, and moved toward the stairs.
The girl, her flute clutched in her hand, raced past him and followed in the dogs’ path.
“Sarah, stop.” His face growing an alarming shade of red, the duke started to climb the stairs after her. “The dogs are maddened. They’ll bite to kill!”
Colin heard terror in the duke’s voice and wondered at it. The duke never became hysterical. It underscored how very much he valued this girl of his.
“Your Grace,” Phineas warbled, from behind them.
Aghast, Colin watched as the duke’s man of business sank into a swoon.
The duke stopped and swung around to stare at Phineas. “Good God, is he dead?”
Growling echoed from above, reminding Colin of the urgency of Lady Sarah’s situation. He sprinted up the stairs past the duke. “Help Phineas,” he urged. “I’ll go after those damned dogs.”
He didn’t wait to see if the duke had listened to his instructions. Rather, he followed the sound of barking toward the private drawing room, near the end of the hallway. Just as he turned the corner and espied the door to the drawing room, the girl disappeared within and shut the door behind her.
Alarm raced through him. The foolish chit had trapped herself in a room with two dogs who clearly weren’t going to rest until they’d tasted fox. Or girl.
A cacophony of enraged baying echoed through the hallway. Colin also heard the discordant notes of a flute. There she was again, he thought as he ran down the hallway, playing her bloody panflute. What did she think the dogs were going to do, give up the hunt to dance a quick cotillion?
Fear giving him the strength of ten men, Colin skidded to a halt outside the door to the drawing room. Inside, the snarling and growling had reached a fever pitch. His heart pounding, he scanned the hallway, looking for a weapon. An old suit of armor stood about two feet to the left of the door, a war hammer placed near the silver boots.
Colin grabbed the war hammer and hefted it to his side. The weapon might prove a bit excessive, but would certainly make his point. The moment he clasped the doorknob, however, utter silence descended upon Inveraray Castle. Gone were the snarls and growls, gone were the sounds of vases breaking and nails scratching across the floor.
Even the flute playing had ceased.
Dread suddenly weighting his limbs, Colin allowed the war hammer to drop to his side. She’s dead, he thought. The dogs, enraged beyond the point of reason, had ripped her throat out. Slowly he turned the knob, his chest tight with terrible anticipation.
And froze when he saw the tableau inside.
The girl sat calmly upon a fine Aubusson carpet,
her tattered skirts spread out around her. She had the fox cradled in her arms. Cheltnum and Townsend sprawled comfortably near her feet. That wild, murderous look had gone from the dogs’ eyes. In fact, they reminded Colin of two puppies who’d enjoyed a rousing play but were ready for a nap. If not for the stink of skunk in the room, Colin might even have questioned if the ruckus downstairs had really occurred, or if he’d been having a nightmare.
The girl, who seemed to have frozen solid at his entrance, stared at him with a wide violet gaze. She took a hitching breath, then said unsteadily, “Good evening, sir.”
The war hammer dropped from his numbed fingers. He glanced from the dogs, to the fox, and then focused back upon her. Abruptly he saw the tips of bare toes peeking from beneath her skirt. “How did you . . . I mean, what happened . . . I . . .”
He broke off, aware he had come close to gibbering. He hadn’t the slightest idea how this kittenish sprite had calmed the duke’s maddened dogs, but now that he’d drawn close to her, his trained eye reminded him of her lovely face and even lovelier body beneath all of that grime and ill breeding.
The sight instigated a strange fluttering in his gut.
Colin, a man who had never been at a loss for words, suddenly had no idea what to say. Annoyance rushed through him as he cleared his throat and struggled for composure. Good God, he mused, he’d shown more aplomb before the Prince Regent.
The notion was enough to loosen his tongue. “Welcome to Inveraray Castle,” he said gruffly.
4
S arah returned his gaze, a queer nervousness stealing over her. She didn’t know what to make of him. Men, in her experience, were rawboned and taciturn, their manner dour and preoccupied with livestock and other farming matters. Their clothes appeared serviceable, their boots worn-out. They took pride in how many sons they’d sired and dogs they kept and fields they’d plowed.
