by Julia London
Noted her? The woman haunted his bloody dreams. “Miss Lockhart,” he said simply, and recalled, with not a wee bit of perturbation, the last time he had seen Mared Lockhart. It was on the occasion he had gone to complain to her father that she and her bloody dogs had penned his sheep again. As he had departed that astoundingly unsuccessful meeting, Mared had opened a narrow slip of a window high above him at Talla Dileas, leaned so far out that he feared she would fall, and called a jaunty “Good day!” to him, her lilting laughter taunting him. His eyes narrowed at the memory.
“Laird Douglas!” she said stiffly, and instantly received a bit of a frown from Grif for it.
“To what, then, do I owe—”
“Ach, Douglas,” Liam said, sighing. “Ye canna begin to understand our troubles. We’ve come to speak about a wee but urgent problem—”
“Urgent?”
“Oh, aye, very urgent indeed,” Liam said, nodding gravely.
He was instantly suspicious. “What is it, then? Has one of yer coos escaped her fence?”
Liam laughed; Grif smiled and said, “’Tis much more urgent than that… is it no’, Mared?”
“Aye,” she said, and added a very reluctant sigh. “Much more.”
Now, Payton couldn’t help noticing, Liam was frowning at her.
Mared frowned right back, but took one long step away from the drapes and fixed her gaze on Payton. “It seems that ye are the only one who can help us, Payton Douglas.”
All right, then, now he was extremely suspicious. Mared was the last person on earth who would ask for his help. “If this is some sort of trick—”
“Trick?” Liam scoffed, and clasped two huge hands over his heart. “Ye wound me, Douglas!”
“Aye, and I shall wound ye with me bare hands if this is trickery. A Lockhart would no’ seek the help of a Douglas unless there was some tomfoolery—”
“Have I ever done ye harm?” Liam demanded. “Or me brother?”
“I canna say that ye have,” he said honestly, but looked pointedly at their demon sister, who at least had the decency to blush. “All right, then—what is this trouble?” he asked impatiently.
Mared sighed again. Lowered her gaze for a moment, then raised it to the ceiling. “Laird Douglas, how gracious ye are to receive us.”
“Gracious?” he echoed in disbelief.
“Oh, aye, ye are indeed,” she said, walking forward. “’Tis true what they say—ye are a gentleman.”
And it was true that she was the spawn of the diabhal. Payton folded his arms across his chest, narrowed his gaze on Mared as she glided so prettily toward him. It was so unlike her that he was quite tempted to laugh.
“The fact is,” she said in a husky voice as she came to stand before him, “we find ourselves in a wee bit of a quandary. There is something in London that rightfully belongs to us, and if we donna fetch it soon, we could very well lose our land. Ye know quite well that would kill me lord father,” she said, looking up at him through dark lashes with her dark green eyes.
For a brief moment, Payton was lost in those eyes… until her words began to sink into his consciousness. He was hardly surprised to hear they were on the verge of losing their land. Carson Lockhart was a good man, but his way of thinking was firmly rooted in the last century. Payton had made overtures countless times to the old codger, but each time he did, Carson had rebuffed him and vowed to raise cattle until there wasn’t a breath left in his body.
Payton eyed her suspiciously. “What of yours is in London?” he asked. “A pirate’s treasure?”
Grif and Liam exchanged a look, but Mared’s smile brightened. “In a manner of speaking, aye, ye might say so,” she agreed. “But we canna say more than that.”
So they had latched onto a scheme of some sort— just like the Lockharts, barmy lot that they were. “And what has this to do with me?” he asked, his gaze sliding to the décolletage of her gown.
“Our Grif must go to London, then. He’d be gone now, he would, except that…” Mared paused. “Except that we are a wee bit short on funds,” she said, holding her thumb and forefinger a hairbreadth apart to show just how wee short. “A-And, we’d no’ ask, indeed we wouldna, but this is right important. Our only hope is, ah, that… that… yewillhelpus.”
“I beg yer pardon?” Payton asked, not hearing her.
“Diah!” she suddenly exclaimed, exasperated that she had to repeat it. “I said, our only hope is that ye will help us, Douglas!”
“Help ye what?” he asked, and smiled as a fire lit in her eyes.
“What she is trying to say,” Grif said, quickly stepping up, “is that we’ve no funds of our own, and we’ve come to ask if ye might see yer way to lending us a wee bit of yers.”
Money? They wanted his money? The proud, stubborn, we’ll-all-go-down-together Lockharts, who’d not take the shirt off Payton’s back if they were naked and freezing in the dead of winter, wanted to borrow his money?
Judging by the way Grif began to prattle, they obviously mistook his silence for denial instead of the shock that it was. “We need enough to go to London and fetch our… belonging, but when I return, we shall have enough to repay the loan,” he said quickly. “With interest, of course.”
“Soldier’s honor,” Liam chimed in. “Ye have me word it will be returned to ye, every last pence.”
“We’d no’ ask if it wasna so important,” Mared pleaded. “Please, Payton.”
Please, Payton… He could count on one hand the times he had heard Mared use his Christian name, and looked at the three of them standing there—especially Mared, who’d once said she’d not want a prayer from him even on her deathbed. Her cheeks were flushed a dark red—she was remarkably shamed by this request and Payton had never seen Mared shamed, not once in the many years he had known her. Oh no—this woman had the grit of the gods.
“How much would ye look to borrow?”
“Three thousand pounds,” Grif said quickly.
“Three thousand pounds?” Payton half spoke, half choked. “Have ye lost yer bloody minds?”
Mared’s face was flaming. And as much as he would have liked to enjoy her discomfort, for some reason Payton saw this outrageous request as his one viable chance to integrate the Lockhart and Douglas lands and make them the premier Highlands sheep producer. He’d no longer have to worry about encroaching on their lands or their bloody cattle encroaching on his. They’d all prosper.
He strolled to the sideboard that held several crystal decanters filled with Scots whiskey and French wines, his mind rattling through all the possibilities as he helped himself to a tot of whiskey and tossed it down his throat.
“And if ye are no’ successful fetching this… thing?” he asked casually, pouring whiskeys for Liam and Grif. “How will ye repay the money?”
Grif smoothed the sleeve of his coat. “We’d repay ye with a piece of our land.”
Payton almost choked, but managed to keep his expression stoic as he handed a whiskey to Liam. He handed the other to Grif and looked at Mared. “How it must pain ye to come here and ask this,” he said.
Mared rolled her eyes and looked away. She was the most exasperating of all the Lockharts by a furlong or more, the one who made his blood boil every time she opened her accursed mouth. Aye, but since she was a wee lass, she could light a raging fire in the pit of him, one that never ceased to glow when she was nearby.
“I’ll agree to lend ye the money if ye can manage to repay me in twelve months’ time.”
“Done,” Liam said.
“And I’ll ask six percent for me trouble.”
Grif and Liam glanced at one another. “Fair enough,” Grif said.
“And if ye canna repay me?”
Grif was already nodding. “We’ll give ye a portion of the Lockhart lands equal in worth to the original loan, and the six percent—”
“No,” Payton said, shaking his head amicably. “If ye canna repay me…ye’ll give me Mared.”
For a moment, no o
ne spoke a word, and the silence, Payton was pleased to note, was deafening. But then Mared gasped her outrage. “Why, ye bloody—”
Grif instantly and desperately jumped behind her, clapped a hand over her mouth as he yanked her into him, and held her captive while he exchanged a worried look with Liam over her head.
“Ah… Douglas, are ye certain ye know what ye ask?” Liam asked.
“Aye,” Payton answered calmly.
With a well-placed heel to Grif’s instep, Mared wrenched free and stumbled toward Payton to stand directly before him, arms akimbo, her green eyes flashing angrily. “Who do ye think ye are, a bloody feudal king? Ye’ll no’ make claim to me, ye scoundrel! Do ye think I am property to be bartered like an old hairy coo—”
Liam grabbed her, clamped his hand over her mouth, and smiled sheepishly at Payton. “She’s a wee bit of a temper. Are ye certain…”
“Aye,” Payton said, enjoying the look of horror in her eyes. “Quite certain.”
“But… but there’s a rather wretched curse—” Grif tried.
“Ye’ll no’ frighten me off with yer bloody curses,” he said resolutely. “If ye want the money, gentlemen, ye have me terms. I’ll give ye the evening to think on it.”
And with that, he turned and walked to the door and opened it, continued on down the corridor, smiling broadly at the sound of Mared’s shouting against Liam’s hand.
As luck would have it, Sarah had wandered into the corridor just as the three Lockharts came storming out of the salon behind him. Payton chuckled at the look of alarm in Liam and Grif’s eyes as they noticed his genteel guest, and almost laughed aloud at the haste with which they tried to retreat.
But Mared looked at them all with disdain as she went striding out the front entry, muttering furiously under her breath with each step.
Aye, she had the grit of the gods, that one.
Three
MAYFAIR, LONDON SEVERAL WEEKS LATER
C aught in a snare of carriages, wagons, beasts, and people at Piccadilly Circus, Viscount Whittington’s brougham came to a complete halt, which gave his youngest daughter, Miss Lucy Addison, yet another reason to complain.
Seated on the bench next to her mother, and directly across from her older sister Anna and their father, Lucy sighed very loudly, squeezed her eyes shut as if she were suffering from some spectacular pain, and rested her chestnut-colored head against the plush velvet squabs.
“There now, Lucy, you’ll not make it any more tolerable with your impatience,” Mother softly chided her.
“Oh, what’s the use of attending at all?” Lucy huffed, opening her eyes and leveling an icy, amber-eyed glare at Anna. “It scarcely matters if we are late or not, for regardless of which gentleman may catch my eye, I will not be allowed to entertain any offers!”
Anna rolled her eyes at Lucy’s attack of vapors— which were becoming entirely too commonplace, really.
“Lucy, darling, that is not very kind,” Father said. “Anna is not purposefully trying to cause you grief.”
“I don’t know how you can be so certain, Father,” Lucy sniffed. “She makes no effort at all to gain an offer. I think she rather enjoys hurting me.”
“How very silly of you, Lucy!” Mother said sharply. “It is not our Anna’s fault that she hasn’t entertained any offers recently,” she added, looking hopefully at Anna. “She’ll find her way soon enough, and you’ll still be young and beautiful and marriageable.”
“No I won’t!” Lucy cried with all the charm of a petulant five-year-old. “I’ll be old and sitting on the shelf next to Anna!”
“I beg your pardon, but have any of you noticed that I am actually in the carriage with you, and therefore can hear what you say?” Anna asked them all.
She received a fatherly pat on her knee in response. “Don’t be cross, dear,” Father said soothingly. “Lucy is quite understandably concerned—after all, she had such a smashing debut last Season that she should expect to make a good match, and would, I daresay, perhaps in as much as an instant, were it not for… well, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Anna said impatiently. “My sister reminds me at least daily that no gentleman of any import has offered for me in the three long years since my debut.”
Honestly, her family’s growing fear that dear little Lucy was missing hundreds of viable offers was beginning to wear very thin. Lucy might be the prettiest of the three Addison sisters, but did that make her the most important of them? And really, Anna could scarcely care less if they married Lucy off before her— she gave that ridiculous custom no thought and had said so, many times. Unfortunately, the rest of her family did.
“Dear Anna, won’t you at least try this evening?” Lucy asked sweetly, looking, all of a sudden, all innocent and damnably pretty. “The Darlington ball is one of the most important events of the Season. …If you’d just try a bit, you might attract at least one gentleman.”
There were times, such as this, when Anna wished they were still children and she could tie Lucy up and leave her in the wardrobe when she was such a horrid little bother. “And what would you have me do, darling Lucy?” Anna asked just as sweetly. “Smile and bat my lashes like you?”
“There now!” Mother warned. “I’ll not abide your quarreling. Conduct yourselves as ladies, if you please!”
Lucy fell back against the squabs again in a pout. Anna ignored her.
Perhaps if she were in Lucy’s perfect little slippers she’d be just as insufferable, but it wasn’t as if Anna was keeping her from receiving offers on purpose. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had at least an offer here and there—of course she had! Three, to be exact—all deemed unacceptable by her parents. Not that it had bothered Anna, really—she scarcely knew the men who offered, and she did not feel an all-consuming desire to marry.
No, Anna had realized the Season she’d made her debut and had attracted only the attention of a man who had a bug collection and a declining fortune that she did not fit the desired mold of what the more exciting bachelors of the ton sought in a potential wife. The realization had been rather hurtful, and she had retreated to the training of hunting dogs—a hobby that had made her one of the most renowned trainers in Devonshire. But Anna had begun to accept the fact she might end up a spinster.
She did not want to end up a spinster. Quite the contrary—she had long ago dreamed of falling in love, of being swept off her feet by some dashing man, of marrying for love and bearing children, and laughing and living… and she dreamed of Drake Lockhart.
Drake Lockhart… She stifled a sigh. Lord God, how she admired that man! Had admired him desperately since her introduction into society. Was there anyone more dashing? More handsome? More accomplished or gentle or charming? Sadly, no… and while Anna wasn’t certain that he held any particular esteem for her, she had her hopes. He flirted shamelessly with her, and since he had come home from his Grand Tour of the Continent at Christmas, he seemed even more flirtatious than he’d been the year he’d left.
She could scarcely wait to see him tonight; she had worn her best ball gown, a shimmering pale green, embroidered at the hem with a garland of flowers that matched the embroidery of the high bodice. Mother proclaimed it lovely, but Lucy, adorned in gossamer white and looking very angelic, said it looked rather matronly.
Anna had ignored her—she harbored no false illusions about her appearance. With auburn hair so dark that it was almost brown and brown eyes, she was what her father called a handsome woman. Not so handsome as to be considered uncommonly pretty, and not so unhandsome as to be considered plain. Just somewhere in between pretty and plain. Along with a thousand other unmarried women.
Nonetheless, Anna had high hopes for tonight’s ball, and smiled when the carriage suddenly lurched forward.
There was a crush of carriages in and around fashionable Berkeley Square, all vying for a position in front of the Darlington mansion. The crème de la crème of London’s haute ton was expected to attend. Only being on one’s d
eathbed was sufficient reason to miss the event.
Peter and Augusta Addison, Viscount and Viscountess Whittington—Anna’s parents—were no different. They were among the privileged ranks of the ton’s very elite. Lord Whittington had been a distinguished member of the House of Lords for several years, and Lady Whittington was known as the consummate hostess.
Furthermore, their three adult daughters were renowned for their good looks and manners. Bette, the oldest, had married a parliamentary protégé the year after her debut and was now the happy Lady Featherstone, mother of two children, and following closely in her mother’s footsteps. Miss Lucy Addison, the youngest, was known as the prettiest of the three, and, in fact, many said she was uncommonly pretty, and the one with the sweetest countenance.
That left Anna Addison, the middle girl. While there were those among the ton who would quietly say that Miss Addison was a true Original, there were many more who thought her a bit artless for the Quality. Anna had heard enough parlor gossip to know that she had what some said was a “difficult personality.”
Frankly, she did not understand why. Well, all right, to be fair, her argument with Lord Mathers over Catholic emancipation at a very large supper party had not exactly been her shining moment, but his lordship was so unbearably stodgy on the subject!
Nevertheless, she was reasonably accomplished by the ton’s standards. She knew all the things a young woman was supposed to know—the harp, a little geography, a little embroidery. She might not be the most demure woman circulating amongst the Quality, but she had never picked her teeth with her fork or stepped on anyone’s toes in the course of a dance, or been caught in a compromising position…as much as she might have liked to have been involved in something so excitingly scandalous.
Unfortunately, the only thing that could be said about her was that she found the endless, circuitous life of the ton rather boring… and even that was not something she was foolish enough to voice aloud. Well… not very often, at any rate.
