“Ye daft woman, you needn’t kiss me to get your letters back. It’s no’ like that.”
“You daft man, I’m not kissing you because I have to. I’m kissing you because I want to. Let me go.”
She spoke through clenched teeth.
Hamish held Megan a moment longer, because he wanted to, because he had to, because a brief demonstration of self-possession on his part was a good idea all around. When he was sure she wouldn’t resume kissing him—and sure he wouldn’t resume kissing her—he let her go but did not step back, lest somebody catch sight of her.
“Your hair,” he said, passing Megan the long evening gloves folded on the table. “You’ll want to see to it.” He wanted to see to it—see to destroying what remained of her coiffure.
She ran her fingers through his locks, brisk, presuming gestures such as Hamish’s sisters might have made but never had.
“You’re presentable enough,” she said, tugging on the right glove. The undertaking was … ach, God help him, erotic. Megan was careful, smoothing out the wrinkles by caressing her own arm, until only a few inches of flesh between her shoulder and her elbow remained exposed.
Skin that Hamish abruptly wanted to get his mouth on. “I’m thanking the Highlander who started the fashion of wearing his sporran front and center on a stout belt, Meggie Windham. You plunder a man’s reason.”
The second glove went on even more slowly. A woman who’d eavesdropped on her male cousins and picked locks knew exactly why Hamish was so thankful to that randy Highlander.
“From one kiss?” she asked, looking entirely too intrigued with her evening glove.
“From thinking about one kiss. With you. I’m for Scotland after your letters are retrieved. If you’re not careful, I’ll kidnap you and steal you for my own.”
She passed him his gloves, and when Hamish would have snatched them from her grasp, she held on to them.
“I’d like that, Your Grace. You’ve said the Highlands are beautiful.”
They both kept hold of his gloves for a moment, not a tug of war, but some variant of the old May dances that connected a couple by the decreasing length of a colorful scarf.
“You would not like being ruined, gossiped about, and disgraced,” Hamish said. “I spoke in jest—poor jest. Scottish humor, there you have it.”
He’d spoken from the heart.
She released his gloves. “Take me driving early tomorrow,” she said. “Don’t wait for the fashionable hour. Tomorrow night is the Hendersons’ soiree, and the next night I’m promised to Lady Leighton’s musicale. Monday is the Halstrops’ ball, and Sir Fletcher has already claimed my supper waltz.”
She fixed her hair while she spoke, her movements competent despite her gloves as she rearranged pins without benefit of a mirror. She would not need a mirror, for without her glasses, she probably could not have seen her own reflection.
“Monday night I’ll retrieve your letters, then,” Hamish said. “By Tuesday afternoon, I’ll be on my way to Scotland and your troubles will be over.”
Megan paused, a hairpin tipped with gold in her grasp. “Must you sound so eager to depart?”
Hamish took the pin from her, surveyed the possibilities, and his sgian-dubh was in his hand in the next moment.
“Hold still, Mad Meggie.” Before he could think better of it, four inches of russet curl lay across his palm. He stashed the knife back in his stocking, and pinned Megan’s hair in a soft loop over her ear. “Ye’ll do for now. More than do.”
She glowered at Hamish—though her glower had a bit of a gloat to it—then patted her hair, while he tucked the lock into his sporran and donned his gloves.
“Until tomorrow,” she said, slipping the loop of a painted fan over her wrist. “I thank you, Murdoch, for a very pleasant supper break. I ask that you not depart for the Highlands without personally conveying those letters into my own hand. The last thing I need is an intermediary losing them for me all over again.”
“I’ll turn over the letters to you and no other.” Meaning Hamish would leave for the Highlands by Tuesday noon, which would allow the turnpikes to clear out, after all.
And allow his heart to break, at least once more before he blew full retreat up the Great North Road.
Chapter Eight
Even for you, that’s a nasty scowl, Keswick,” Devlin St. Just, Earl of Rosecroft, said.
“Wait until you have sons,” Keswick replied as the party below reassembled itself for dancing. Long lines this time, a reel or country dance to work off the supper offerings. “No scowl on earth is nasty enough to quell the irreverence of adolescent boys. Were it not for the fortitude of my countess at my side, I’d be a fearful wreck at the prospect of the coming years.”
“We’d all be fearful wrecks, but for our countesses. How’s the leg?”
Louisa waved from across the ballroom with her left hand. Keswick made her an elaborate bow. That was their signal for “this will be the last set.”
Thank God. “My injuries pained me far worse before your sister took me in hand,” Keswick said. “She sees to it that I eat properly, I move about when I might instead remain at my desk for hours. I ride out on fine mornings—you’re joining us tomorrow, right?”
Rosecroft assayed a scowl of his own. “It is tomorrow. Leave without me if I’m not at the gates by the appointed hour. Emmie has fixed opinions about the folly of grown men staying out all night and neglecting proper rest. If it should storm tomorrow evening, I will inevitably be required to read the children their bedtime stories, and need I remind you, Keswick, one does a poor job of subduing dragons and witches at one’s peril.”
“I was slaying dragons, witches, and sea monsters before you learned your first cure for excessive drink.” And yet, the dawn ride after Her Grace’s grand ball was a tradition—a family tradition—and not to be ignored lightly.
A smiling Megan Windham wafted past them, pretending to examine the pattern on her fan.
“If she can’t see us,” Rosecroft muttered, “how does she expect anybody to believe she’s admiring the flowers on her fan?”
“She saw us. She simply ignored us,” Keswick replied. “If we remain at this balcony, we should soon spot the Duke of Murdoch stumbling by, his kilt pleating in odd places, his expression bemused. Megan rather kissed the poor fellow into submission not ten minutes ago.”
While Keswick had stood about, his back to the combatants, trying to look inconspicuous by the ferns, and praying Louisa would soon take him home.
Though what had Murdoch expected, when he’d allowed a Windham lady to lead him behind the greenery?
“I recalled something about Murdoch,” Rosecroft said as the orchestra started the introduction. “Something I’d heard years ago, before all that nonsense about disobeying orders, getting separated from his men, and being held by the French.”
Being held by the French, particularly after being captured out of uniform, was not nonsense.
“What did you hear?”
“At Corunna,” Rosecroft said, his voice conveying the dread every British soldier associated with that episode in hell. “His men made it to the ships. I heard it said every single one of his men and their families made it to the ships.”
Which meant through exhaustion, privation, deadly winter storms, with the French promising death to any stragglers, Hamish MacHugh had somehow safely led hundreds of soldiers, their wives, and even a few children to the evacuation ships.
“I’d forgotten that,” Keswick said, as MacHugh—Murdoch, rather—went sauntering past with a nod in their direction.
He was tidy and calm, when by rights he ought to have crawled out from behind those ferns, given the formidable passion of a Windham female intent on kissing a fellow witless.
“I wonder what else we’ve forgotten about him,” Rosecroft said. “I hear he plans to leave for the north, so perhaps we’ll never have a chance to find out.”
Rosecroft strode off, which meant Keswick was free to call
for his coach and take his lady home. First, he’d stop by the card room and make a few casual inquiries of those who’d served with him on the Peninsula, also a few very casual inquiries.
Murdoch might plan to leave soon for the north, but as Mr. Burns had written, the best laid schemes o’ mice and men, gang aft agley.
War had become more entertaining the day Sir Fletcher Pilkington had overheard a gunnery sergeant explaining to a recruit that the business of an army was to advance. The fighting, the marching, the besieging was all in aid of advancement. When a man became a necessary article to that continued advancement, he was expected to do less fighting.
Thus the regimental cobbler never saw frontline action, for an army needed boots. The artificers who repaired harnesses, belts, pistols, and holsters were never deployed to the fore either. The scribe, though he occupied an informal position, was also kept out of the worst fighting so he might pen more wills, letters to sweethearts, or the occasional forged requisition.
Regimental politics had made more sense from that day forward, and situations Sir Fletcher could make sense of, he could manipulate for his own benefit.
“I hardly expected to see you out and about today,” remarked a fellow on a rangy chestnut gelding. The horse was fit rather than sleek, somewhat like his owner. The saddle and bridle were spotless, though worn, as were the rider’s boots and gloves.
“Puget,” Sir Fletcher said, offering the mounted version of a bow. “If I make an appointment, I keep it. Shall we be off? I’ve no need to get caught up in the carriage parade today.”
The Honorable Garner Puget, third son of the Earl of Plyne, nudged his horse forward. “How are your sisters?”
Sir Fletcher’s four sisters were beyond the reach of a mere third son, at least in the opinion of their wealthy, titled papa. Rather than dash Puget’s hopes regarding the oldest of those sisters, Sir Fletcher turned his horse toward one of Hyde Park’s less used bridle paths.
“My sisters continue to thrive, thank you. Lady Pamela was asking after you just this morning. She wondered why you missed the Windham do last night.”
“I didn’t miss the Windham do. I was present until the good-night waltz.”
Doubtless hoping Sir Fletcher would finesse the poor fool one of Pamela’s dances. But for a moment’s distraction with a buxom widow in an unused parlor, Sir Fletcher had been too busy keeping an eye on various Windhams and inebriates.
“Pamela must have missed you,” Sir Fletcher said. “She’s much in demand among the nabobs and cits. They do favor a lady with a title.”
Puget remained silent in the face of that goading. He was not a loquacious soul, but his skill with a pen was considerable.
“I need you to write me up a few vowels,” Sir Fletcher said as the horses ambled along. “Nothing extravagant. A few pounds here and there.”
“You said you were all but engaged to a Windham. Why not do as other younger sons do and trade on your expectations?”
Had they been in the army, Sir Fletcher could have ordered Puget into the thick of the fighting, and Puget would have had no choice but to go, such was the discipline of the British military. Alas, the war had ended, more or less, and vague threats on a leafy bridle path were the best Sir Fletcher could do.
“You are a discerning fellow, Puget,” Sir Fletcher said. “Think about it: A man from good family with a spotless reputation and excesses of charm and sophistication might be given leave to pay his addresses to a woman of suitable station. This is generally not a matter of public proclamation, though the lady will know she’s been claimed.”
Sir Fletcher had been given that leave first with Sally Delaplane and then with Hippolyta Jones. In both cases, he’d traded on his expectations rather exuberantly, and required his father’s assistance to avoid the sponging house. The earl had made it plain no further aid would be forthcoming, and the merchants had been growing impatient. Sir Fletcher had come across Megan Windham’s old letters in the very nick of time.
“I’m familiar with courting protocol, Sir Fletcher.” Puget sent his horse ahead through a narrowing in the path, and rather than hold back a slender oak branch that blocked the way, he allowed it to slap against Sir Fletcher’s chest.
That minor rudeness gratified Sir Fletcher as a bout of swearing from Puget would not have.
“I’ve every confidence you shall soon have need of courting protocol yourself, Puget. In any case, between obtaining leave to pay Miss Megan Windham my addresses, and plighting my troth with her, inquiries will be made.”
“You’re an earl’s son. The inquiries will be made mostly regarding your family’s situation, and their contribution to the settlements.”
Sir Fletcher rather hoped that was the case, but hoping was for fools when a man could plan instead. The business of an army was to advance.
“The family finances will be quite in order,” Sir Fletcher replied. “The expenses of a social season, however, exceed a bachelor’s means, and thus I have immediate needs to see to.”
More debts in other words, most of them to the trades, others in the form of markers and notes of hand. The Duke of Moreland, his brother, and his squadron of sons and sons-by-marriage would learn of those all too easily.
“All gentlemen have debts, and you have one to me,” Puget said. “I haven’t so much as danced with Lady Pamela since last month, and you said she wanted for partners. She sat out four times last night, Sir Fletcher.”
That was rather a lot, even for Plain Pammy.
“Strategy, my good fellow. When you dance with her next, my step-mama will have become desperate to keep Lady Pamela on the dance floor. Even my father would overlook a penniless younger son’s presumption when Step-mama explains it to him that way.”
This was pure tripe, but Sir Fletcher knew Puget’s circumstances, and had engineered some of those circumstances in fact. Tripe was as much consideration as Puget would get from his former commanding officer.
“How much and from whom?” Puget asked.
“Fifty pounds should do it,” Sir Fletcher said. “Perhaps fifteen or twenty each, from Quimbey, Barchester, and, say, Hancock. The usual approach will serve. The gentlemen played a bit too deep when in their cups, and I happily benefitted from their bad luck at cards. My man of business will discreetly pass an IOU complete with signature before their men of business, and my finances will come right.”
“You’re daft,” Puget snapped, taking the left fork in the bridle path. “Quimbey was never seen drunk in public even before he married. Barchester is a sot, I’ll grant you, but he hasn’t twenty pounds to pay you with. Hancock never plays deep and I’ve never seen a sample of his handwriting.”
Here was the moment Sir Fletcher enjoyed the most, when arrogance led the righteously unwary further in the very direction Sir Fletcher intended them to bumble.
“You’re the penmanship expert. You tell me whose notes of hand can be most credibly duplicated.”
Not forged. Puget grew rabid at the mention of the word, and well he should, for forgery remained a hanging felony.
“Why not a Windham? They’re obnoxiously well fixed, you have to have played against some of them from time to time. As duke’s sons they’ll write in typical Etonian copperplate.”
Puget had an odd ability to assess character based on handwriting, and handwriting based on character.
“I’ll avoid them because they are Windhams,” Sir Fletcher replied. “Moreland will manage the settlement negotiations as head of the Windham family. That’s as close to an overprotective duke as I’d like to come.”
Sir Fletcher let Puget parse possibilities in silence. Far better for the forger himself to suggest who the next victim should be.
“Lieutenant Lord Hector Pierpont,” Puget said. “Drinks rather more than he ought, former soldier, typical education, and he frequents the same coffeehouse off Grosvenor I do. I’ve seen his notes of hand often enough to be able to replicate his penmanship.”
“You’ve hit on
a brilliant solution, as usual. I don’t doubt that come Monday night, Pamela will bask in your clever company for at least the duration of a minuet.”
“I want a waltz, Pilkington, preferably the supper waltz.”
Sir Fletcher, though fools in love must be allowed their petty dramas. “You will write the IOU for the full fifty pounds?”
Puget’s expression became gratifyingly hopeless, then determined. He was the best kind of felon, being both reluctant and highly competent.
“Pierpont can stand the expense,” Puget said, “and if you bilk him for the entire amount, he might be less inclined to drunkenness when he gambles in the future.”
A reluctant, competent felon with a troubled conscience. What could be better? “I’m sure you’re right. You’re doing him a favor, when you put it like that. Poor wretch ought to be thanking you for warning him off even greater excesses of vice.”
Such was Puget’s skill, the poor wretch would never know he’d been robbed. Sir Fletcher would send his man of business to call on Pierpont’s. Pleasantries would ensue, a bank draft would be handed over in exchange for an exquisitely forged IOU.
And thus, a problem solved. The army would advance without a drop of bloodshed.
“Lady Pamela will look with favor on your request for her supper waltz at Monday night’s ball,” Sir Fletcher said.
A single waltz was small consolation for the years Pamela would spend marching through various formal parlors and ballrooms in aid of some gouty old baron’s interests, much less the nights she’d spend in his bed.
Geneva, as the indulged youngest, might look forward to a happier fate. If she were lucky, the present earl would expire before she came of age—cheering notion.
“Isn’t that your intended?” Puget asked as the horses emerged onto a broader thoroughfare.
Through the hedgerow and across a green, Megan Windham sat on the bench of a phaeton side by side with a large man in a kilt. She made a pretty if somewhat nervous picture, but then Megan was as timid as a smooth-chinned navel ensign shipping out for Cathay.
The Trouble With Dukes Page 11
