Highlander in Disguise

by Julia London

  The coach slowed, interrupting Anna’s thoughts. She looked out the window, saw they had arrived at Hampton Court Palace.

  The rain had stopped, which Anna took as a favorable omen. She bade Bentley to wait. “Are you certain I can’t drive you, miss?” he asked with a worried squint.

  “I’ll be quite all right, Bentley,” she assured him, and with her pelisse pulled closely around her, her reticule firmly in her hand, she set out in search of Mrs. Merriman in the clutter of village that surrounded the old palace.

  It didn’t take her nearly as long as she feared; the fishmonger in the marketplace was well acquainted with Mrs. Merriman. “Of course!” he said, delighted to be of some assistance. “Mrs. Merriman buys her fish here every Friday, as regular as rain.”

  “Might you have a direction? I’m afraid I’ve gone a bit daft and can’t remember other than that she lives near Hampton Court.”

  “Oh, you’ll find her on the row along the Thames,” the man said jovially. “And if you would be so kind, tell her we’ve some right fine lampreys this morning.”

  “I will certainly do so,” Anna said, and walked on, to the row of neat town houses along the Thames.

  At the third door Anna tried, a daily maid opened. “I beg your pardon, but I am looking for Mrs. Merriman,” Anna said politely.

  “Aye,” the girl said, eyeing Anna up and down. “And who shall I say is calling, miss?”

  Aha! “Miss Addison,” she said happily. “I should like to speak with her about her aunt, Lady Battenkirk.”

  “All right, then, please step in,” the girl said, admitting Anna to the foyer. She left Anna standing there and walked down a narrow hallway, rapped lightly on a door, and at someone’s beck and call, stepped inside. A moment later, a tall, thin woman with black ringlets about her face stepped out and came striding forward.

  “Miss Addison?”

  “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Merriman?”

  The woman nodded.

  “I am Anna Addison, Lord Whittington’s daughter. My father is a distant relative of Lady Battenkirk’s, and she often summered with us in Devonshire.”

  “Yes, I recall that she did,” Mrs. Merriman said, regarding her suspiciously.

  “I hope you will forgive me, but I have come to inquire as to Lady Battenkirk’s whereabouts, as there is someone come to town to call on her.”

  “Oh?” the woman asked, clasping her hands at her waist as she assessed Anna. “Unfortunately, my lady aunt is in Wales just now. An archaeological dig of some sort and quite impossible to reach. If I may ask, who exactly is seeking her?”

  “Ah, well… it’s rather odd, really,” Anna said, “but the gentleman in question is a Scottish earl—”

  “A Scottish earl?” Mrs. Merriman repeated, clearly confused.

  “Scottish,” Anna nodded, “And he is quite desperate to find a woman named Amelia, who happens to be a friend of Lady Battenkirk—”

  “Amelia? Surely you must mean Amelia Litton! She and Auntie were fast friends until the day she died.”

  A rush of disappointment washed over Anna. “She died?”

  “Yes, from bad meat, just last summer. Oh, you mustn’t fret, dear. She was ancient,” Mrs. Merriman assured her.

  Anna looked curiously at Mrs. Merriman. “Ancient, you say? Not a girl, a young woman?”

  Mrs. Merriman twittered at that. “Lord, no! She was an old spinster governess that once taught Auntie—I beg your pardon, forgive my manners, Miss Addison. Might I invite you in for a cup of tea?” she asked, gesturing to the parlor.

  “That would be lovely,” she said absently, her mind trying to reconcile what Mrs. Merriman had just said with what Mr. Fynster-Allen had told her about Ardencaple’s quest.

  Mrs. Merriman gestured toward the parlor. “My aunt never married, you know, as she is something of a Bohemian and could never stay in one place for very long. She and Miss Litton remained friends all through the years, although Miss Litton refused to travel with her, as she thought cavorting about quite unbecoming a lady. For thirty years, my aunt would bring Miss Litton a treasure from her travels. When Miss Litton died,” she said, opening the door to the parlor, “I was the lucky recipient of all her treasures. I really must warn you—I’ve not quite determined what to do with it all, and I daresay my aunt’s tastes run to the extreme,” she said, and stepped aside, letting Anna pass into the parlor.

  The sheer numbers of bric-a-brac and knickknacks in the room was enough to startle anyone. There were sculptures and plates and strange-looking objects Anna could not quite make out.

  “I’ve been sorting through it all, trying to make some sense of it,” Mrs. Merriman sighed.

  It was the most bizarre and atrocious collection of objects Anna had ever seen in her life. She turned slowly, taking in the whole room as Mrs. Merriman began to recite some of the places Lady Battenkirk had been, and as she turned toward the mantel, she saw an object that literally took her breath away.

  She had forgotten it completely, had not recalled she had seen it until this very moment—but she had seen that hideous thing, one night last Season, in a dimly lit room of the Lockhart mansion in Mayfair.

  In that instant, she knew what Lord Ardencaple was about.

  “How do you take your tea?” Mrs. Merriman asked as she walked to a bellpull, and Anna turned her most charming smile to the woman.

  “Plain, thank you,” she said, and wandered deeper into the room, her smile growing brighter as her mind raced ahead.

  Eleven

  A week after Anna’s visit to Mrs. Merriman, the Seatons held their annual supper party for leaders of the House of Lords. This Season, however, the supper party had taken on a new mien; it was said that the supper party would include forty of Lord Seaton’s dearest acquaintances… among them, the most desirable unmarried gentlemen of the ton, as the Seatons hoped to make a match for their daughter, Elizabeth.

  And as there were so many guests invited to this intimate supper affair, the Seatons served sweet sherry in the grand salon while they waited for all their supper guests to arrive.

  Miss Elizabeth Seaton took the opportunity to promenade about the room with Anna, along the edge of a large Aubusson carpet, past gilded hearths and torchères, damask-covered furniture, and ten-foot paintings of Seatons gone before them, gossiping about what she’d heard of Lord Ardencaple at the Hospital Society luncheon just Tuesday past.

  “He’s in London in search of a wife,” she whispered to Anna. “His family has quite a grand fortune, and they despair of ever seeing an heir, so they have sent him to London.”

  “Is that what he’s after?” Anna asked with a laugh.

  “Yes!” Elizabeth exclaimed happily. “And he comes with the highest of recommendations.”

  “Really? Whose, exactly?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “Who? I, ah …I don’t know, exactly, but I heard Lady Paddington say so, and she’s always quite aware of these things.”

  Lady Paddington also sat in her parlor making up gossip if she didn’t have it firsthand—Anna would wager her dowry that Lady Paddington didn’t know Ardencaple from her elbow and had made up every little thing, including his alleged recommendations.

  But she wasn’t going to have the chance to say so, for the Lying Scotsman himself was announced that very moment by the Seatons’ butler. “His Lordship Arden-caple, Griffin MacAulay,” he articulated, bowing low. And Lord Arden-caple swept into the room, smiling charmingly. Anna groaned as the debutantes, to a girl, swooned.

  Not to be left out, Elizabeth immediately let go Anna’s arm and asked to be excused, and nonchalantly made her way to the door and his exalted lordship, as did several other young women in attendance. What ridiculous creatures they were, rushing forward as if he were some prize.

  All right, Anna thought as she turned away and wandered to the window, she could concede that he was indeed frightfully handsome, what with his long-styled hair, and his smoldering charm, and his dancing green eyes. And there was
that lopsided smile, of course, and that lovely mouth, and all right, yes, that body, lean and hard, which naturally she could not help noticing the night he had kissed her so passionately on the veranda. And had imagined several times since.

  But he was a fraud!

  He was insinuating himself into the finest salons in London under false pretense! Rather charming and witty pretense, perhaps, but false nonetheless! And from what Anna had deduced, he intended to rob them all quite blind. The very thought of it made her angry all over again, and she turned around to face the room, saw that three young women were gushing around Lord Ardencaple as he tried to make his way around the room. Lucy, she also noticed, was chatting it up quite nicely with the elusive Mr. Bradenton, who, Anna had to admit, did seem captivated.

  A bell was rung, and Lady Seaton stepped to the middle of the room. The din in the room slowly subsided; Anna’s father suddenly appeared on her right arm, all smiles, and with his hand firmly on her elbow, he whispered, “Let’s not be shy, shall we?” and led her into the middle of the large salon.

  “We’ve a rather different arrangement this evening,” Lady Seaton announced. Beside her, Ardencaple was smiling down at Miss Elizabeth, who looked as if she might melt into the floor at any moment.

  “As we’ve so many guests, my lord husband and I have determined that we shall have two dining rooms, which will be divided on the basis of age.”

  “Oldest gentlemen with the youngest ladies, I should hope!” the ancient Lord Carsmith called out, and several of the older gentlemen laughed appreciatively.

  “I should not be so careless as to let loose an old scoundrel such as yourself on the debutantes we are honored to have in our presence,” Lord Seaton replied. A quiet little titter went through the hopeful young debutantes as they looked shyly at the unmarried gentlemen in the room, and Father squeezed Anna’s elbow.

  She felt absolutely ill with dread.

  “If I may ask your indulgence as we seat our good friends in two groups,” Lady Seaton said. She put on the reading glasses her butler offered her on a silver tray, and picked up the vellum, from which she read, “Lord and Lady Carsmith, if you would be so kind,” she said, and thus began to arrange the promenade of the older guests to the first dining room.

  Anna felt a bit like a spinster when her father kissed her cheek and joined her mother in their place in line.

  The young ladies milled about, giggling as they stole glimpses of the gentlemen. The gentlemen, on the other hand, laughed with one another and smiled openly at the debutantes. The only one of them to see her, Anna thought, was Mr. Bradenton, and even that was a look of curiosity more than anything else. She felt hopelessly out of place, and when the sound of Lucy’s gentle laughter rose above the others, she felt as if she would just as soon hurl herself out the window than proceed with this insufferable supper.

  Unfortunately, Lady Seaton had other ideas. She returned shortly after the elder guests had promenaded their way into the first dining room, and with a clap of her hands, she said, “I daresay I shall miss the most fun! We’ve a dining table in the billiard room. I thought it quite lovely there, and I do hope you will find it to your liking.”

  Several of the young ladies quickly assured Lady Seaton that it was a wonderful venue.

  “Well, then, shall we?” she asked, and with vellum in hand, she glanced at her paper. “Lord Ardencaple, would you do the honor of escorting Miss Anna Addison to the dining room?” she asked, looking about for her first arranged couple.

  From where she stood, Anna saw his slight wince, which quickly melted to a pleasantly stoic mask. What a pity she couldn’t reach the window and leap. She was reminded of why she despised social customs such as the promenade to supper, as if the prince regent were receiving them! Why couldn’t they all just troop to the billiard room in one big pack? But she pasted a smile on her face as Ardencaple stepped into the center of the room and bowed toward her. “I’d be delighted,” he said, and straightened, one hand behind his back, the other extended toward Anna.

  With a moment’s hesitation—which was ended with one look from Lucy—Anna quickly stepped forward and put her hand in Ardencaple’s. “Good evening, Miss Addison. Lovely to see ye, it is.”

  “Oh, likewise,” she said, glaring at him as he brought her hand to his lips before dropping it unceremoniously.

  He held out his elbow. Anna laid her hand on his forearm, let him lead her to the front of the room, where the butler indicated they should wait until the queue had been assembled for the procession to the billiard room.

  “You mustn’t strain yourself attempting to look so overjoyed by this turn of events,” Anna muttered as Lady Seaton put her daughter, Elizabeth, with the highly sought-after Mr. Bradenton.

  “’Tis no strain, I assure ye—I am quite adept at feigning pleasure,” he muttered beneath his breath.

  Anna could scarcely contain a snort at that under-statement. “Yes, I imagine you are adept at feigning all manner of things.”

  “And I’ll kindly spare yer tender feelings by no’ telling you just how many things I must feign when I am near ye, Miss Addison.”

  Lady Seaton continued assigning the procession.

  “And, Mr. Lockhart, would you do the honor of escorting Miss Lucy Addison?” Lady Seaton asked.

  “I could not possibly be more delighted,” Drake said, stepping forward to receive Lucy’s perfect and dainty little curtsey.

  Anna couldn’t help herself; she immediately looked away, her gaze inadvertently landing on the Imposter again, who was actually smiling. “Foiled again, aye?”

  “I beg your pardon, but do you mind?” she whispered hotly.

  “No’ at all. But I’ve a wee suggestion for ye, Miss Addison,” he said amicably. “Ye might smile at the lad now and again, as ye really are quite a bonny lass when ye smile.”

  This time Anna could not contain her small groan of exasperation. “Do you take me for a fool, Ardencaple? Do you really think your flattery will induce me to find you agreeable? I shall advise you to try something else, for I will not, no matter how hard you wish it, become my sister.”

  The moment the words fell blithely off her tongue, she wanted them back.

  Certainly her remark sparked something in his eyes; he looked at her so pointedly that she actually flinched a little. “I didna think for a moment that I should be as fortunate as that, ye wee bana-bhuidseach. I had every confidence ye’d remain sharp-tongued and entirely too vexing all yer natural days.”

  Whatever it was he called her, she felt his complete censure and did not think it a compliment. She inched away from him. “You may call me what you will,” she said in a low voice, “but at least I can rest easy in the fact that I am honest, my lord.”

  His face darkened terribly, but he said nothing as Lady Seaton called the last couple. “Mr. Fynster-Allen, would you be so kind as to escort Miss Crabtree? Lovely. And now, if you will all please follow me to the billiard room!”

  They walked down a long hall, past the formal dining room where voices were already raised in merriment. Anna could feel the Lying Scotsman’s body stiff beside her, could feel his loathing practically emanating from him, and while she shouldn’t have cared in the least… she did. She was really quite bothered by it.

  Fortunately, in the dining room, she was seated directly across from Lord Ardencaple, and next to Mr. Fitzwater, a gentleman of means who had offered for her two Seasons ago. Anna and Mr. Fitzwater made polite conversation through the first course of turtle soup while Lord Ardencaple, she couldn’t help but notice, was charming the ringlets from Miss Daphne Dorchester’s head.

  As the footmen cleared the soup and began to serve the main course, Anna noticed farther down the table, Lockhart had eyes for only Lucy, seated directly across from him and gaily holding court with Mr. Bradenton on her right and Lord Nickson on her left. The whole room seemed to be having an extraordinarily gay evening; even Mr. Fynster-Allen and Miss Crabtree, perhaps the two shyest people in
all of London, were actually tittering with one another as if they were old friends.

  The single exception to the gaiety seemed to be Anna and Mr. Fitzwater, the latter continually mopping his brow with his napkin, as if she were somehow causing him distress.

  It was Mr. Bradenton, surprisingly enough, who enlivened the affair by asking the Lying Scotsman about his estate. “Is Scotland your primary residence, my lord, or do you intend to make London your home?”

  Ooh, excellent question, and one Anna wished she’d thought of.

  “Ah,” the Imposter said, lifting his flute of Madeira to Bradenton, “I canna deny London has her appeal,” he said, shifting a smile to Elizabeth Seaton, “but Scotland has me heart, sir.”

  Elizabeth sighed.

  “How poetic,” Anna muttered.

  “But you seem to enjoy your time abroad,” a woman observed, and Anna snorted into her wine.

  “Aye, of course,” Ardencaple said. “In fact, I canna go abroad as often as I’d like, no’ with me duties and all. Yet I suppose I travel enough to keep abreast of the news of acquaintances.”

  “Beyond England?” another guest asked.

  “Oh, aye. The Continent, quite frequently.”

  Ah, so now it was the Continent, was it? If he’d been beyond the Strand, she’d be quite surprised. “À quelle distance se trouve Ardencaple?” she suddenly asked in French.

  Lucy’s head snapped up, and she openly glared down the table at Anna.

  Ardencaple, however, seemed not the least bit disturbed and smiled cheerfully. “How far to Ardencaple? Why, Miss Addison, I confess, I havena measured it,” he said, drawing a polite round of laughter.

  “But you would put it very near the Highlands, wouldn’t you?”

  He glanced around at the others with a bit of smile as if he were patiently appeasing a child. “Aye, quite near.”

  “But the Highlands are so dreadfully large!” Anna blithely continued, smiling at the others. “Surely you can narrow its location for us?”