by Julia London
Preparation for the dinner was daunting, particularly with a smaller staff than what Daisy generally employed for such an evening. Nevertheless, they managed to prepare the food and the lodge for guests, and she was quite pleased that the meal would be sumptuous, owing primarily to the availability of vegetables in Balhaire. Moreover, Rowley had been dispatched and had returned with several bottles of French wine and enough Scotch whisky to fill the lake.
“French!” Daisy had trilled with excitement.
“Indeed, madam, and had for a song,” Rowley reported excitedly.
“Well, of course,” Belinda said. “It’s been smuggled.” Nevertheless, she exclaimed at the fine quality of the wine when she drank it.
The day of the supper dawned cold and quite wet, but Daisy didn’t despair. The lodge was warm and dry, which was an improvement since their arrival. That afternoon, she dressed in her best gown, a soft green-and-gold brocade silk with a gold petticoat and embroidered stomacher, trimmed in satin ribbons and Belgian lace at the sleeves. It was the height of fashion, sewn for her just before she’d left London. Daisy also piled her hair high, then festooned it with summer flowers. She wore emerald earrings that matched the emerald she wore on a ribbon around her neck. If they’d come to gawk, let them see her in all her finery.
The guests had been invited to arrive by four o’clock. At a quarter to, Daisy made one last walk through the lodge, then went to the great room to wait with Uncle Alfonso.
Four o’clock came and went with no sign of anyone.
“It’s the roads, no doubt,” her uncle said, pacing the room with her. “They’re bloody well impassable.”
At five o’clock, Mrs. Green inquired if she should put the soup on. “They’re not coming,” Daisy said to her uncle.
“Patience, love.”
At six o’clock, Daisy was dejected. She began to imagine it all a cruel joke, and she could picture all the Scots in their strange dress sitting before a hearth somewhere, laughing at the Englishwoman who had come to the Highlands to open a nearly abandoned lodge. Arrandale was right—no one wanted her here.
Ellis, restless and hungry, was as confused as Daisy. “Why do they not come, Mamma?”
“It’s raining, darling,” she said absently.
“But not very hard at all,” he said, staring out the window.
Daisy stood up and held out her hand to her son. “Come. Let’s go and ask Mrs. Green if we can save any of the supper, shall we?”
She took his hand and turned away from the window, but before she could take a step, Belinda shouted, “Here comes someone!”
Ellis and Daisy gasped. Belinda suddenly appeared in the great room, having run from the foyer. “It’s a coach,” she said frantically.
“All right then, be calm,” Uncle Alfonso said, ushering her to a seat. “It will not do to appear overly anxious. Daisy? Perhaps you ought to be on hand to greet them.”
“Yes, of course,” Daisy said. She fluffed out her gown and straightened Ellis’s neckcloth. With a wink at her son, she glided to the door to receive her guests.
Rowley opened the door and shot open an umbrella, then marched out into the rain to greet her first guests as the coach rolled to a halt. A coachman in a soggy livery jumped down from the back runner and quickly set out a stool before opening the coach door.
A man whose shoulders were so broad he could scarcely fit through the opening emerged. He wore a tartan plaid belted around his waist, and the tail of it draped over his shoulders. Behind him, another man emerged, just as large as he. They had ruddy cheeks and tufts of ginger hair sprouting from beneath their caps. The first man strode forward, ignoring Rowley completely, and when he reached the entrance where Daisy was standing, he bowed. “Lady Auchenard.”
“Yes, I—”
“MacDonald. Irving MacDonald, that is, of Skye. My brother, Fergus MacDonald,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the other man.
Daisy was confused. She had not invited these men. She had invited Mor MacDonald and his wife. “Ah...how do you do?” she asked and curtsied quickly. “Please, come in from the rain,” she said, stepping back so the two massive men could enter. “You must have come for Mr. MacDonald and his wife?” she asked uncertainly as they crowded into the foyer and removed the plaids from their shoulders as rain dripped from their hair.
“Aye,” said Irving MacDonald. He offered no further explanation, no reason why the affirmative reply she’d received from Mr. MacDonald had been passed to them. Neither of them spoke as they stared at her.
“But you’ve come from Skye,” she said, her gaze going from one to the other.
“Aye,” said Irving MacDonald.
“Well.” She couldn’t very well turn them out for being the wrong MacDonalds. “Well!” she said again. “It seems you are the only ones to have ventured out in the rain. Would you like a whisky?”
“No,” said Irving MacDonald.
Dear God. “Then perhaps some wine?”
“No, we are no’ alone,” he said gruffly. “More’s coming, they are. Rocks on the road up the way, aye?”
“If I may, madam.” Rowley had come in behind the men, unnoticed by Daisy as they were so large. “Perhaps they will be more comfortable in the great room?” he asked as he managed to squeeze in around them.
Daisy followed Rowley and the gentlemen into the great room and introduced them to Alfonso, Belinda and Ellis. The gentlemen responded with greetings that sounded more like grunts, then stood silently.
“It’s quite a deluge, is it not?” Daisy remarked.
“Eh? Duda?” Irving MacDonald said.
“Ah...” Daisy cleared her throat. “I thought perhaps we’d take a tour of the lodge.”
The men looked at her as if they found that suggestion strange. Ellis, Daisy noticed, was sitting so tightly beside Belinda that her gown all but covered him.
Daisy looked helplessly at the windows. “Would you care for whisky?”
“Aye,” the men said in unison.
Rowley went to fetch it. Daisy sank onto the settee beside Belinda but avoided her cousin’s gaze. This was a disaster, and she didn’t need to see it on Belinda’s face. She watched the two giants toss back a whisky like water and hand the empty tots to Uncle Alfonso for more.
“Madam,” Rowley said softly behind her. “A carriage has arrived. A rider, as well.”
“Oh!” She sounded far too relieved, she realized, but hurried from the great room nonetheless.
“Mamma!” Ellis cried and ran after her, clutching at her hand as if he was afraid to be left alone with the Scots.
Again Rowley stepped out with the umbrella. A young couple emerged from this carriage and introduced themselves as the Murrays. After the exchange of pleasantries, Mr. Murray explained that their two children had been left with their nurse. Ellis was visibly disappointed.
“Milady, Mr. Ewan Somerled of Killeaven,” she heard Rowley say, and she turned to meet a tall, slender man with blond hair. He was wearing trews and smiled warmly. “Lady Chatwick, it is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Daisy held out her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Somerled.”
He took her hand and bowed elegantly. “You will forgive me for coming in my parents’ stead,” he said. His voice was not as heavily accented as some the Scots she’d met thus far; he sounded more like Arrandale. “It is too wet for them to travel and bid me to come on their behalf and welcome you to the Highlands.”
Ah, yes, the excuse of weather. She could imagine the scene in some rustic highland dining room, this man with his aging parents, both of them wrapped in plaid before a fire. Go and see what sort of fortune it is, lad.
“Thank you for coming,” Daisy said. She invited him inside with the Murrays. Her head was spinning with the fact that men she
’d not invited had come to her supper. Belinda was right—they’d obviously heard of her predicament, and with the exception of the Murrays, the rest of her favorable replies had sent their best prospects for tapping into her fortune.
It was maddening, disheartening—she thought she’d escaped that constant bother! But there was no escaping it. Not even as far away as the Scottish Highlands.
All the guests were gathered in the great room, and she’d have to make the best of it. Fortunately, Daisy was an accomplished hostess; she made sure that they all had drinks, that their wet cloaks were taken to be dried, that the fire in the hearth was roaring to chase the chill from their bones and that there was quite a lot of chatter about the condition of the road to Auchenard.
“Madam?” It was Rowley at her elbow again. “More guests.”
“Are there?” Daisy turned about, and warmth waved through her—Arrandale. She tried to hide her ridiculous level of pleasure. She tried not to ogle his commanding figure in trews and boots and the dark blue superfine coat. And while he stoked salacious thoughts that fluttered through Daisy like dandelions, she was determined the bloody rooster would not know of her admiration.
Besides, he’d come with a lovely young woman with blond hair. Now she understood why he was reluctant to engage in the art of trifling. She had to admire him for staying true to the girl.
Daisy smiled at her popinjay of a neighbor. Naturally, he did not smile, but he inclined his head. “My lord Arrandale,” she said. “You have surprised me. I had not received your favorable reply.”
His companion glanced up at him, but Arrandale didn’t seem to notice her at all. “My apologies, Lady Chatwick. I had no’ intended to burden you with my presence, but my sister, Miss Catriona Mackenzie, would no’ be put off of it.”
His sister! Daisy almost tittered with delight. Now that she had a look at the girl, she did seem awfully young for what she assumed was Arrandale’s terribly advanced age. “Miss Mackenzie, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. You are most welcome at Auchenard.”
“Thank you,” the young woman said and curtsied. Her eyes fixed on Daisy’s tower of hair; she seemed impressed by it. But then her gaze slid past Daisy to the others in the room.
“Please,” Daisy said, gesturing to the others. “Shall I introduce you?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I am acquainted, aye?” She smiled and curtsied to Daisy once more, then flit into the room, her head high.
Daisy glanced at Arrandale sidelong as they watched his sister greet the MacDonalds. “You came,” she said simply.
“Aye, I was coerced by my sister. She has set her sights on Edward Fraser and there appears naugh’ that will stop her.”
“Edward Fraser never responded to my invitation. Perhaps, he, too, will suddenly appear at the door.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “He intends to offer for Nan Gordon. Cat has no’ yet accepted her fate in this. As you have undoubtedly noted, the Highlands are no’ teeming with bachelors.”
“I’ve noticed no such thing,” she said primly.
“Nevertheless, I see you’ve left no stone unturned.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you’ve gathered the local bachelors in dire need of a fortune, have you no’?”
She frowned. “That was not my intent.”
He chuckled softly, the sound wrapping around her. “Sealbh math dhuit.” At her look of confusion, he leaned closer and whispered, “Good luck.” He gave her an enigmatic smile—but a smile all the same—and stepped away, accepting the offer of whisky from Rowley.
Daisy gaped at his back. That man was astonishingly rude. Granted, he was right, most of the bachelors had been sent by their mothers to sniff out her fortune, but he didn’t have to be so gleeful about it. With a sniff, Daisy moved into the crowd of guests with her back intentionally set to Lord Arrandale and the tiny little pleasure that she had, at last, made him smile.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BONNIEST WOMEN were always the most dangerous.
In his life, Cailean had trained men how to fight, he’d sailed ships through rough seas, he’d outmaneuvered English ships and run for a hidden cove with smuggled cargo. Aye, he was a strong man...but he was damnably weak when it came to the fairer sex.
He’d meant to keep himself at a safe distance from Auchenard, but here he was, in Lady Chatwick’s great room, in the midst of fawning idiots.
Little wonder why they were fawning. She was dressed in a gown the likes of which Cailean’s mother often wore when she returned from visiting England: polished silk, highly embroidered. Her hair was artfully adorned and her face was not powdered as so many men and women in France were fond of doing. Personally, Cailean didn’t care for all the powdering, and he never wore wigs as Englishmen did—he had quite enough of his own hair, thank you, which was presently tied into a queue.
A hint of a smile played across her lips as Somerled tried to impress her with God only knew what. Cailean guessed that Lady Chatwick was quite accustomed to men babbling like simpletons when they first met her.
Aye, she was bonny; he’d not deny it. Bonny enough that some unoiled, unused part of him had wanted to come to dine. It helped that he’d been browbeaten by his oldest sister and his mother into escorting Cat. The lass had been beside herself with elation when Cailean had at last agreed to see her to this soiree. She had thrown her arms around his neck, whispered a fevered “Thank you,” then grabbed the hand of her cousin Imogen and tugged her along as she began to complain about the choice of gowns she had to wear to such an important event.
Cailean had groused about it, naturally, but privately he was not unhappy he had an excuse to come and witness how the barmy Englishwoman would conduct herself with the fortune seekers in attendance tonight.
Mr. Kimberly, her uncle, was conducting a tour, as if none of his guests had ever seen the inside of a hunting lodge. Cailean hung back, idly listening, his gaze wandering often to their glowing hostess.
How different she appeared tonight. Regal. Wealthy. Boidheach—beautiful. Quite different from the last two times he’d seen her. Gone were the bedclothes, the cheeks pink with sleep and the hair tousled about her shoulders. Gone was the soiled gown and leather apron, the bit of vine stuck in her braid, the smudge of dirt on her cheek. She wore a gown that shimmered when she moved and an embroidered stomacher so tight that her breasts all but spilled from her bodice. He was clearly not the only man to have noticed—all the bachelors looked as if they were teetering on the verge of enchantment.
That was what she wanted, he supposed.
They meandered through the hallways, taking in this or that. Mr. Kimberly was apparently the sort to keenly study the history of mundane things—he was determined that no part of the lodge go unmentioned. Yes, they’d done a remarkable amount of work in the last weeks, and, yes, the rustic nature of the lodge held a certain charm. Clearly, a good amount of money had been put into the work. But it was a bloody lodge all the same.
With the tour completed, they were once again in the great room. Cailean fought a yawn. Thus far, the evening reminded him of many interminable evenings he’d spent at Norwood Park. He might have at least looked out at the stunning view of Lochcarron, but on this dreary, wet evening, he could scarcely make out the loch at all.
He idly surveyed those gathered. Men were pathetically simple creatures—they were all of them slaves to feminine allure, stumbling through life like a herd of cattle while images of naked ladies and the burning hope of actually seeing one danced about their heads.
In her circle of admirers, Lady Chatwick suddenly laughed, the sound of it light and airy, and the gentlemen shifted closer to her. Ah yes, a mere smile, coyly given, could compel them all to daring acts of chivalry.
He looked away from that group and happened to catch sight of Catriona. She
and Finella Murray had their heads together as if they conspired against nations instead of unsuspecting gentlemen.
Cailean glanced at his pocket watch and wondered how long before supper would be served. Someone moved beside him, and he turned his head, saw a woman he knew to be part of Lady Chatwick’s household. He nodded politely, and she squinted her brown eyes at him.
“I know you,” she said. She did not sound pleased; she sounded a wee bit accusatory.
“Pardon—I am Mackenzie of Arrandale,” he said. “And you are...?”
“I beg your pardon. I am Miss Belinda Hainsworth,” she said, and offered her gloved hand to him. “I am cousin to Lady Chatwick.”
Cailean took her hand as she sank into a curtsy so stiff that he wondered if she was perhaps not in the habit of it.
“The weather is wretched, is it not?” she asked as he pulled her up. She folded her arms over her middle as if warding off a chill. “I fear it is too damp for Lord Chatwick.” She leaned closer to Cailean and whispered loudly, “A nun once told me she had to leave Scotland, for all the dampness had given her a permanent ague!”
Cailean’s brows rose with surprise.
She nodded with great verve, as if she’d just imparted some vital news to him. “Fortunately, I rather suspect we shall not be here long.” She sighed, leaned back against the wall.
“And why is that, then? Your lady has gone to the trouble of repairing Auchenard.” And restoring a garden to its “former glory” for all the garden parties she threatened to have.
“Well,” she said, shrugging lightly, “her ladyship will marry again by year’s end.”
Something in Cailean hitched. He glanced down. “I didna know she was affianced.”
“Well...not officially, mind you,” Miss Hainsworth said and then smiled pertly. “But she knows who she will marry.”
Cailean swallowed down a disturbing bit of disappointment. Already? “Is he here, tonight, then?”
“Here!” Miss Hainsworth laughed. “I should think not!”
“A Scotsman?” he asked.
