“Court me?” Hero repeated with a frown.
He looked as surprised as she did by his confession, but still he carried on determinedly. “Aye, ye thick-headed lass,” he said. “Didn’t yer other beaux ever ask ye to dance before?”
“No and I am not at all dressed for a ball.”
Leaping away from Ian, Hero started and turned to stare at her father, who stood in the dark doorway. “Papa, what are you doing out of bed? Where is Cooper?”
The duke looked down at himself, and Hero couldn’t help but do the same. He was wearing his striped nightshirt and cap but no robe. Instead he had on a red hunting jacket and satin shoes with silver buckles. “My shoes are quite all right, I think.”
“Papa!” Hero turned to Ian almost desperately. This interruption was the most ill-timed yet. She wanted to hear what he was going to say. She needed some sort of validation that when Ian said courting that he truly meant courting.
“Harry, old chap,” Ian said with forced cheer to catch the duke’s wandering attention. “What brings you down so late?”
“Did I miss my invitation?” Beaumont asked before shaking his head. “No, no. That isn’t it at all. I came down to greet our guests.”
“Oh, Papa,” Hero sighed mournfully. Her father was incredibly absentminded but rarely was he delusional. “We haven’t any guests.”
“But they are arriving,” he insisted. “I saw them out my window.”
Hero shared a pained look with Ian. Another moment was lost to them. There were other problems much greater at that moment than Ian’s intentions. “Come, Papa, let’s find Cooper and get you back to bed.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Excuse me, my lord,” Boyle said from the doorway, looking not at the marquis nor at the curiously attired duke but at the ceiling, though not with the studious expression of one enraptured by the view but rather the detachment of one who doesn’t wish to acknowledge what he is actually seeing.
“What is it, Boyle?” Ian asked in exasperation, not at all appreciative of another interruption. The turn of events just moments ago required some discussion, or at least reflection. Courting? He wondered at the word. At the truth of it.
The butler hesitated uncertainly as Beaumont frowned mightily and went to wind up the music box. “It seems you have guests.”
“So I said,” the duke boomed out. “Didn’t I just say so?”
Ian raised his brows, sharing a surprised look with Hero, who initially felt only relief that her father hadn’t drifted into true madness after all. “At this late hour? That’s … unusual. Isn’t it?”
“Very unusual,” Hero confirmed. “Who is it, Boyle?”
The butler’s lips pursed in the manner of a man who’s just bitten into a lemon. “It is Miss Kennedy, my lord. And her brother, Mr. Camron Kennedy.”
“Oh,” Hero said, pursing her lips similarly. She darted a look at Ian, who seemed neither puzzled nor disturbed by the names. “Have you met?”
“We have,” Ian said with a nod. “Miss Kennedy was … er, in residence when I arrived a month ago.”
“In residence?” Hero asked, darting a look from the marquis to the butler, who had the look of a man who wanted badly to speak his mind but was putting tremendous effort into not doing so. She looked back at Ian expectantly.
“Miss Kennedy had assumed the title a bit prematurely when Robert’s solicitor, Mr. Nash, had troubles locating me,” Ian finally said diplomatically but Hero understood what he was saying.
Scottish law did allow for a woman to inherit a title, and Daphne Kennedy, as the oldest child of Robert’s only sibling, his deceased sister Lucille, might have thought that she did have a valid claim to the marquisate when Nash failed to promptly produce a direct male heir. Ian had told her that it had taken them almost a year to locate him in Greece, and Hero imagined that Daphne had been eager to assume the worst, arriving at Dùn Cuilean and settling in during the interim.
Hero would be willing to wager her entire widow’s jointure that Daphne had been extremely disgruntled by Ian’s appearance. Frowning at Boyle, Hero said, “You didn’t write me of this.”
“In truth, I dared not, my lady,” Boyle said. “Miss Kennedy had threatened to let the staff go if Mrs. Potts or I did anything to defy her authority. Without Mr. Jennings’s support against her, there was little I could do.”
“Mr. Jennings stood in support of her claim?” she said in surprise.
Ian finally spoke. “I gather she had given him some reason to believe that I would never be found.”
Hero snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can imagine the ‘reason.’”
“Where did you put them, Boyle?” Ian asked.
“I was uncertain, so I left them in the library,” Boyle said, only to have his words followed by a burst of bright laughter.
“Oh, Boyle, you should have known you couldn’t leave me there for long!”
Hero and Ian both turned to see Daphne Kennedy poised in the doorway with her younger brother lingering just behind her. Daphne continued into the room, pulling off her gloves as she came. Her gaze locked firmly on Ian as she approached, holding out her hand. “I don’t know what he was thinking, my lord, coming to ask if I’d be welcomed. Of course, I’m welcome, aren’t I?”
“Miss Kennedy. In truth, I thought after our last encounter, it would be some time before you graced Cuilean with your presence once more.”
Hero looked at him curiously from across the music room, wondering what the encounter entailed when emphasized in such a fashion.
“Oh, that! It’s in the past. No hard feelings, of course,” Daphne continued, withdrawing her hand when Ian made no move to take it. “I wanted to speak with you once more now that I have a plan that might suit both of us.” Daphne turned in a circle, spotting Hero next to the piano. “What is she doing here?”
Ian’s eyes met Hero’s and she could read in them everything from apology to humor. “Like yourself, Lady Ayr seems to consider Cuilean her home. I have welcomed her.”
Though Ian prompted some amusement with his mild use of the word ‘welcome’—really, it had seemed more like being enfolded than a lukewarm welcome—Hero couldn’t stop her lips from twitching unpleasantly at the thought of speaking to Robert’s niece. Theirs had long been a contentious relationship. “Hello, Daphne, it’s been a long time.”
Daphne turned away without returning the apathetic greeting. “It’s a wee bit late for music, don’t you think? Boyle, have my bags taken to the State Room.”
Hero’s eyes meet Ian’s and she began to speak but Boyle cut in. “The State Room is currently occupied.”
“By whom?”
Raising a hand, Ian stepped forward. “You could hardly expect Lady Ayr to resume the marchioness’s chambers.”
Daphne didn’t hesitate. “I will take them then.”
“I believe the same underlying principle applies,” Ian replied just as promptly.
It was easy to see that Ian’s lack of welcome and capitulation to her wishes was trying Daphne’s notoriously unsteady temper. Hero had seen it all too often over the years when Daphne did not get her way. She was pompous and superior without having justification for either one. Robert’s older sister had married badly, leaving behind her wealth and position to wed a nephew of the Earl of Cassillis, a mere lawyer.
“Surely you don’t expect me to take rooms on the second floor?” Daphne said with mocking laughter.
Ian only shrugged. “The duke seems to like them well enough.”
Daphne shot a surprised glance at Beaumont. She seemed conflicted for a moment upon discovering that the rumpled old man in his nightshirt slowly turning the crank on the music box was a genuine duke. She started to curtsey prettily but the duke just scowled at her.
“You’re a very pretty girl,” he told her. “You should smile more. That frown makes your eyes look mean.”
Daphne’s eyes narrowed a bit more before she rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t signify.
As family, I should have a family chamber.”
“The only other chambers available on the first floor are the nursery,” Boyle said, earning Daphne’s stony stare. He seemed pleased to add, “There are several fine guesthouses on the estate as well, if you’d like.”
“My lord!” Daphne protested. “Surely you don’t expect to treat me like such a …” She fell silent, expectantly waiting for Ian to negate the butler’s words. Her hopes were in vain.
“Guest,” Ian finished for her. “An unannounced and unexpected one at that. I’m afraid you will have to choose between the guest chambers on the second floor or one of the guesthouses, as Boyle said. I shan’t displace one … guest in favor of another.”
“Come, Sis,” Camron Kennedy finally spoke, taking his sister’s arm. He nodded at Ian. “Thank you for having us at all, my lord. I did try to warn Daph that we should have written ahead.”
Ian seemed pleased that at least one of his new guests was displaying some courtesy and nodded politely, stepping forward to offer his hand. “Pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Kennedy.”
“Camron, please,” the young man said, returning the greeting with an engaging grin. “We are cousins, after all.”
“Distant cousins,” Daphne added with a smile. “Very distant.”
Ian shifted, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It has been a long day. Perhaps we should all retire for the evening?”
Chapter Seventeen
Like any good fairy tale, there was always a villain to destroy the happiness of the princess, Hero thought as she watched Daphne flirt with Ian throughout the next day. Robert’s niece could be quite charming when she chose and somehow was able to turn the awkward moment in the drawing room aside as if it had never occurred. She was outgoing, bold, and determined where Hero had long been more content to live quietly. Daphne longed to dominate conversations while Hero preferred to listen and observe. She’d found that one could learn much by watching.
So she watched Daphne flirting with Ian, skillfully ensnaring his attention, and it seemed that Ian was falling under the other woman’s spell as he smiled at her stories. Hero was disappointed but not terribly surprised. Daphne was, after all, a beautiful woman with red hair as vibrant as her personality, flashing green eyes, and an enviable figure. Hero could never understand how it was that she hadn’t married yet. She was easily in her mid-twenties, talkative and charismatic in a way that most men of her acquaintance found irresistibly alluring. With her family connections, she must have had many offers.
Any of which, Hero was certain, would have pulled Daphne up from the situation Hero knew the woman considered intolerable. She had uncles who held great titles, yet her own father was a mere mister. She might have married far up, gaining a title of her own. Instead, she had waited out Robert, certain beyond reason that she would gain his title—a title of her own—when he died, even though Hero knew that Robert had told her on many occasions that he had an heir in Ian, a direct male descendant of the Robert’s grandfather, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Maybole, the last earl before the marquisate was granted. Ian’s father, William, had been the younger brother of Robert’s father.
Only without a direct line male heir would the title descend the female line. Daphne knew that. It amazed Hero that she had had the audacity to put herself ahead of Ian to begin with. But then, Daphne had always been like that, taking what she wanted.
And it seemed that now she wanted Ian.
It was an easy way to achieve everything she desired. Hero watched Ian smile, his dimples dipping deeply, and sighed. Even without a castle and a title, Ian was a prize. She would take him without a single pence.
It seemed Hero had wasted the day away watching the pair. From breakfast through luncheon. All the afternoon while they had played bridge with her father and Camron, she had watched Daphne work her wiles on Ian, unable to stop it.
Clearly, Ian’s definition of the word courting was far different than the one held by the society Hero had grown up in. Courting held an intention to woo, to wed. Perhaps he had merely meant that he intended to court her into his bed. That instead of embracing their attraction for a day, he was implying an extended affair.
Not that Hero minded. She wanted Ian as well, for however long and in whatever way he chose.
However, it seemed that over the past day, Ian wasn’t as certain of his intentions as he had been. Though he claimed that the attraction between them was unusual and strong, perhaps securing a bedmate in Daphne would cost him less effort in the seduction than Hero had apparently so far required.
And now she might lose any chance she had with him.
“Am I boring you, Aunt?” Camron asked softly from his place by her side at dinner that evening.
Hero jolted back to the present with a rueful shake of her head. “My apologies, Camron. It’s been a long day. I hadn’t thought to ask, what are your plans now?” Camron Kennedy was just twenty years of age and fresh from his studies at the University at Glasgow.
“Didn’t you hear? I’m to join Father’s firm next month,” he replied cheerfully.
That news took Hero aback, and her brows rose in surprise. “Is that so? But I thought you weren’t interested in practicing the law.”
“The law?” Beaumont boomed. “Why would you want to do that? There are too many lawyers in this world. Prigs and thieves!”
The young man merely shrugged at the insult. “I do hope to go into politics someday but as father says, this will be a good start.”
“Politicians are even worse than lawyers,” Hero’s father said, pointing his fork at the young man. “You should aim for the diplomatic corps. I could get you in. I know the … the … what is your name again?”
“And what of Daphne?” Hero couldn’t help but ask as she patted her father’s hand.
“Haven’t you figured that out yet?” A smirk raised Camron’s lips and he turned to look at his sister while he sipped his wine.
Hero couldn’t help but look as well. Daphne was laughing, her hand on Ian’s arm. Her fingers curling into the folds of his jacket. Her lashes fluttering. It was painful to admit, but Daphne was a much more practiced flirt than she. Robert’s niece knew just how to look at a man, how to make him feel as if he was powerful and masculine. How to make him feel intelligent and masterful.
What had Hero done to do that beyond questioning Ian’s abilities to manage Dùn Cuilean? Other than their brief evenings on the ramparts, what had Hero done to get him alone? To pursue Ian with even a fraction of the resolve Daphne so easily displayed?
Still laughing, Daphne shot Hero a sidelong look before she slid her hand under the table, and Hero’s eyes widened. Suddenly she recalled forgotten bits of gossip from past social events in Glasgow. Hero knew Daphne was an accomplished flirt, but rumor had it she was a skilled seductress as well. Though Hero had never given the rumors much credence before, now she wondered. Thoughts that begged the question as to how far the flirtation between the pair had traveled in Daphne’s previous acquaintance with Ian.
Her chest tightened as she imagined Ian in bed with Daphne, imagined him kissing Daphne as he had kissed Hero on the ramparts.. Daphne would respond much differently than Hero had, no doubt. Robert’s niece had always been bold and passionate about life. She wouldn’t do anything halfheartedly.
Feeling a bit ill, Hero rose, laying her napkin neatly on the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I will retire. I—I believe the exertions of the day might have overtired me after my recent injuries.”
Ian stood as well, his brow creased with concern. “Are you unwell, Lady Ayr? Shall I escort you to your rooms?”
“Please do not, my lord,” Daphne interjected, laying a hand on his arm. “I was hoping to have a word with you … in private. Lady Ayr can find her own way, I’m sure.”
Private word, indeed, Hero sniffed. “Indeed I can. Please don’t let me interrupt your conversation.” Ian looked poised to protest but Hero just turned to her father. “Come, Papa, you ca
n walk up with me.”
“But I haven’t had my pudding yet,” Beaumont protested mulishly.
“Papa …”
“I shall see him up, Aunt,” Camron offered. “Perhaps we shall even play a few games of billiards before then. Daphne says there is a billiards room here. What say you, your grace?”
“I shall look forward to it, sir!” the duke announced, pounding a fist on the table. “By Jove, it’s been quite some time since I played at billiards. I’m quite good, you know.”
Hero bent to kiss her father’s cheek, then leveled Camron a grateful look. “Thank you, but beware, he is very good. For your own sake, please keep the stakes low.” Glancing around the room, she skimmed her eyes over Ian, who was still standing at the head of the table, and Daphne, who was smiling triumphantly, before turning away.
“Hero …”
“Good night, everyone.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ian resumed his seat slowly, cursing himself for many things. For allowing Daphne back into Cuilean, for allowing her to monopolize him throughout the entire day and to even maneuver a place by his side at the dinner table by guilelessly insisting that Hero take the foot, given her higher ranking. He’d borne Daphne’s touch again and again, all the while wishing that he could physically shake her off.
But he was a gentleman and the marquis. He hadn’t wanted to appear so openly rude.
Hero hadn’t appeared troubled by it at all. She had read while they played cards. Smiled at Daphne’s many stories and sat regally at the dinner table as the courses were served and removed. She had conversed with her father and young Kennedy, displaying enough of her enchanting smile to make him believe she was enjoying herself. In truth, she had ignored him so thoroughly that for a short while he had attempted to rouse some jealousy in her by responding to Daphne’s blatant flirtation with a few smiles of his own.
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