The Trouble With Dukes
Page 18
They walked along in silence to the next corner.
“Keswick, your usual loquaciousness has deserted you,” Rosecroft said. “What are your thoughts?”
“We could warn MacHugh off,” Deene said. “Evie says Sir Fletcher Pilkington has been sniffing about Megan’s skirts.”
“I asked Keswick for his thoughts,” Rosecroft said. “Any damned fool knows Sir Fletcher has been doing the pretty around Megan, but he’s the next thing to a fortune hunter.”
Had Rosecroft and Deene been ten years younger, they might have shoved each other, elbowed one another in the ribs, and otherwise masked an abiding affection with fisticuffs.
Keswick might have knocked their heads together too. “Doesn’t it strike you both as odd that MacHugh’s military record is a little too awful? Why wasn’t he drummed out of the regiment? Why no court-martial? Why all that bad conduct, but no reduction in rank?”
Rosecroft waited for a carriage to pass, then stepped into the street. “Because MacHugh was brave. The French talked about him in whispers, and his men would follow him anywhere. Even the generals respect bravery.”
“Our generals talked about him in whispers,” Deene said. “Mad MacHugh, the Terror of Toulouse, or something like that. The French couldn’t hold him for long. It’s odd that his name comes up, though, because I overheard a discussion last week in which he was mentioned.”
As had Keswick. Several discussions. “Speculation about his fitness to hold a title? Intimations of an unbalanced mind? Vague innuendo about ungovernable temper, dishonor, and violent impulses?”
Deene bent to toss a dead lily into the nearest flowerbed. They were outside Lord Anthony’s town residence, the house dark save for lamps lit on the front steps.
“Exactly that,” Deene said, straightening. “What has the peerage come to, when a savage brute, a murderer of unarmed innocents, holds a ducal title? When a man of significant rank leads his soldiers into an ambush against orders and evades justice? If that’s what happened.”
“When a title ends up in an unlikely place, there’s always talk,” Rosecroft said. “One endures the gossip and goes back to Yorkshire at the first opportunity.”
“Or Kent,” Keswick said. “And one doesn’t convict a man on the basis of talk. MacHugh served honorably, no matter that his record has some blemishes. I’m inclined to trust Megan’s judgment where he’s concerned.” Particularly when Megan had confided in MacHugh rather than bring her troubles to her own family.
Deene swung his walking stick up to rest against his shoulder, as soldiers often carried their rifles.
“Why trust our Megs? She isn’t the most outgoing soul, and MacHugh—Murdoch, rather—has come upon the scene suddenly. Sir Fletcher has been constant in his attentions since the season began, and while I don’t care for Pilkington, he’ll not disappear into the wilds of Scotland once the vows are spoken.”
“Are the cock pits, bear gardens, whorehouses, and gaming hells preferable to Scotland?” Keswick asked. “For those are Pilkington’s favored haunts when he’s not swilling drink at his club or ogling some debutante’s mama.” Or chasing heiresses, or using a lady’s correspondence to coerce her hand in marriage.
Keswick wasn’t about to reveal Megan’s epistolary mistakes to her own cousin, not when MacHugh had apparently taken that situation in hand.
Rosecroft muttered something foul in his native Irish. “If we disqualify as a suitor every bachelor who behaves as a bachelor, my cousins will all be old maids. Keswick, what do you know that you haven’t told us?”
“Much, of course, but what’s relevant is that in every case where somebody has brought up Murdoch’s unfitness—his alleged unfitness—in my hearing, that person has recently been discussing the new duke with one Sir Fletcher Pilkington.”
“Him again,” Deene replied. “This will get messy, and there’s Megan in the middle of it, with Their Graces intent on marrying her off, come fire, flood, or famine.”
“Here’s what I think,” Keswick said. “If Sir Fletcher is concerned for Megan, then he ought to bring his concerns to her family, most especially to us three. Spreading talk in the clubs is cowardly, and whatever else is true, I have not heard Hamish MacHugh accused of cowardice, ever.”
“Messy,” Deene said again. “Damned messy, when all we have to go on is a lot of conflicting talk.”
“So we learn what we can,” Rosecroft said, “keep a sharp eye out, and alert the rest of the family to a potential problem. Gentlemen, I’ll bid you good night and wish you pleasant dreams. My regards to your ladies.”
He bowed and strode back in the direction of Westhaven’s townhouse. Deene took off in the other direction, while Keswick remained where he was.
“Are you coming?” Deene asked. “The hour grows late and my marchioness will worry.”
“Your marchioness, like my countess, is not worried,” Keswick said, resuming their perambulations. “She’s waiting for you in her most diaphanous evening ensemble, probably enjoying a cup of chocolate and planning your welcome. This is how large families are made.”
“One is inspired, Keswick, to know a man of your stalwart nature regularly surrenders himself to the charms of diaphanous nightwear.”
Every chance I get. “As do you.”
They came to another corner, at which their paths diverged.
“What shall we do about Murdoch?” Deene asked. “I can have a word with a few former officers, nose about at Horse Guards, look over whatever records might pertain. I’m not above sending letters to some of the men I served with or chatting up a few others.”
Keswick was abruptly desperate for his countess’s company. Louisa was the most sensible woman he knew, and her advice on the matter of Megan’s suitors had been brilliant.
“You must do as you see fit, Deene, but all that chatting, corresponding, and nosing about will fuel whatever gossip Sir Fletcher has set in motion. I suspect that’s exactly his aim, and I for one do not intend to oblige him.”
“You can’t stand by and do nothing while Megan waltzes into the arms of an unsuitable parti,” Deene said. “I don’t care if Murdoch is a duke. A man with an ungovernable temper or scandal in his past won’t serve, Keswick.”
“Scandal means little to a Windham in love,” Keswick said, “and I never said I’d stand by and do nothing.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I’ll talk to Murdoch,” Keswick said, “and if he doesn’t call me out or beat me insensate for putting a few awkward questions to him, I’ll listen to what he has to say.”
Chapter Thirteen
Spring came to Mayfair, and to Megan Windham. She suspected the season was contagious, for the longer Hamish MacHugh courted her, the more his blue eyes took on the sparkle of a peaceful loch and the merriment of bluebells.
“I’ve realized something,” Megan said as she and her beloved tooled along a quiet path in Hyde Park. Hamish drove as calmly as he did everything else—almost everything else. On a music room sofa the previous week, he’d shown a lovely propensity for passion.
“You will give me the benefit of your latest insight, I trust.”
He trusted, he never demanded. Megan wanted to kiss him for that.
“Cousins are not like brothers,” she said. “Not quite. I have male cousins, but Edana and Rhona are your sisters. You’re more fierce with them than my cousins are with me.”
Hamish turned the vehicle down a shady side lane. He drove a team seasoned by the heavy draft work at the brewery, still quite fit and sound, but in his words, “retired from combat duty.” Their names were Clyde and Angus, and they were shamelessly fond of their owner. Perhaps that was contagious too, for as unconventional a choice as they were for a carriage duty, Megan smiled every time she saw them.
“Fierce isn’t always good,” Hamish said. “Edana and Rhona can grow fiercely acquisitive at the milliner’s or the modiste’s, and then when the bills arrive, I’m reduced to shouting, all to no avail.”
He bumped her shoulder gently. “Have I told you that you’re brilliant, Meggie mine? Colin is actually quite good with money and has plenty of his own, though his common sense is lacking in other regards.”
Colin was quite good with charm. “He’d better acquire some common sense. If he’s a duke’s heir, prosperous, handsome, and a novelty in a kilt, then the young ladies will favor him with their melting glances because of those attributes, and not because of his finer qualities.”
Melting glances could lie. Megan suspected most women learned that sooner than she had. Edana and Rhona, who had several brothers, doubtless knew it.
“Colin rarely considers the why’s,” Hamish said, “which is his besetting sin. He’s brave, he’s honorable, but he’s not …”
“He’s a hothead,” Megan said, hearing the worry in Hamish’s voice. “My cousin Bartholomew was too. Impetuous, to those who liked him. Those of us who loved him called him reckless.”
The memory still hurt, of hugging Bart so tightly as he’d prepared to leave for the war in Spain. Willing him to be careful, to behave as if he might take a bad tumble or come to far worse grief with any incautious step. To look where he was going, and see the danger before the danger found him.
“Colin’s reckless,” Hamish said, signaling the horses to slow from trot to walk. “Though he’s always sorry for his stupid wagers or rash words. He likes you, by the way.”
“I like him. I do not like that your siblings trouble you so.”
Megan adored that the path was deserted. She and Hamish drove out early in the afternoon, long before the carriage parade thronged the park with fashion and gossip. With Hamish at the ribbons, these outings became an interlude of greenery, fresh air, talk, and shared touches. Clouds were gathering above, making the day a trifle chilly, but that gave Megan an excuse to sit closer to her intended.
“Family is a joy,” Hamish said, “and a worry. My grandfather was quite young when the Forty-Five happened, but he told me stories of his life as a boy. The land was owned in common, even if it was held by the laird. Fortunes rose and fell for the clan as a whole, and nobody was left alone with their troubles or their joys. We still have the miseries and joys, but much has changed.”
He steered the horses to a patch of grass beneath a venerable oak, and told them to stand.
“You’re a duke,” Megan said. “That’s an enormous change, and it can be a change for the better, Hamish.”
“I’m to marry the woman I love,” he said, punctuating the sentiment with a kiss. “That’s the best possible change.”
For a few minutes, they kissed and nuzzled and risked scandal beneath the quiet oak, though only a minor scandal. When Mama and Papa returned in a few weeks, an engagement would be announced, and the wedding plans would start in earnest. Megan did not much care where or how the ceremony took place, she cared only that Hamish spoke his vows with her.
Hamish had already told her he loved her, sometimes with his kisses, and sometimes with blunt words tossed at her in the middle of private conversations. Megan hadn’t acquired the knack of tossing the words back, but she wanted to.
“I like when you say my name,” he whispered, when they’d satisfied the immediate need for kisses. “Somebody greets this Murdoch fellow, and I look about to see who he might be. Colin thinks I ought to start going by James instead of Hamish.”
“Don’t you dare.”
She’d pleased him. Hamish gazed off down the path, but by the curve of his cheek, she knew he was trying not to smile.
“You speak the Gaelic to me more and more, Meggie. Did you know that?”
“Don’t start going by James, please. I know you as Hamish, and that’s your name. Now tell me why you joined the army.”
His posture shifted. Very likely, the smile had disappeared. “Why do you ask?”
Because she could ask him anything, and he’d answer honestly, not with cousinly discretion.
“You love your home, you’re the oldest, the head of the family. I don’t gather you enjoyed any part of being a soldier, and yet, you served for years. I can’t reconcile what I know of you with your past.”
He unwrapped the reins from the brake and asked the horses to walk on. “Would you rather marry a man who thrived on war? Some said I had an aptitude for it, when I wasn’t disobeying orders, setting a bad example for my brother, or getting captured by the French.”
Despite the smooth path beneath the horses’ feet, Megan had somehow steered the conversation to boggy ground. The breeze had picked up too, and she smelled a shower coming their way.
“I am marrying you, and Wellington apparently had an aptitude for war, much to England’s great relief. If war thwarted a French tyrant, then I’m glad somebody in Britain was proficient at it. The Portuguese, Spanish, Germans, Russians, Austrians, Poles, and Italians weren’t having much luck without us.”
Hamish was silent for a good hundred yards, while greenery went by in a verdant blur. Megan had little sense of her bearings, which would have alarmed her had she been in anybody else’s company. Whether they were near the Serpentine or Park Lane, wandering Kensington Gardens, or about to come out along Rotten Row, she did not know.
Hamish was beside her, and Hamish would see her back to the Moreland mews. The heavens could open up, thunder and lightning shatter the skies, and Hamish would see her safely home.
“After the Forty-Five,” he said, “many a Scottish family was put off the land they’d worked for centuries, particularly in the west of Scotland. They couldn’t speak English, didn’t know how to read or write in any language, and the whole notion of documentation making a land transfer legal and binding … they didn’t grasp that. After Culloden, a Scottish lad was often promised land in exchange for taking the king’s shilling. He didn’t join up to fight for king and country, or even for the coin. He joined up in hopes he’d be rewarded with a few acres, so his family wouldn’t starve.”
An uneasy shiver prickled over Megan’s arms. “But the Scottish regiments are among the bravest.”
“The Scottish regiments have to be the bravest. They’re always deployed where the fighting is expected to be the worst. The military is smart about it too. In the army, a Scotsman can strut about in his plaid, hear the pipes, march to the drums. At home, these were long forbidden, though they’re fashionable now. So the Scots joined up, and to the horror of the French and the amazement of all the lordlings idling about with their purchased commissions, those farm boys and village lads fought like blazes for their own.”
Megan wrapped her hand around Hamish’s arm, for the shivery feeling had become a chill abetted by the freshening breeze.
“You fought like blazes for your own.”
Hamish urged the horses to pick up their pace, from a walk to a trot. “I fought beside my men. I all but stole requisitions, argued with generals, mislaid orders, and waged a war within a war to see that as many of my subordinates got home to claim their patch of Scottish ground as possible. I keep Napoleon in my prayers, Meggie. Because of him, a few acres of Scotland got back into the hands of the families who deserve them.”
This view of war was complicated and uncomfortable, also intimate—unique to Hamish MacHugh, which made it a precious confidence.
“I did not fight for fat, nancy George,” he went on, “or poor mad George, or any of the damned Georges who came before them. Do you think me a traitor, Meggie?”
“Of course not.”
They trotted along for few minutes, suggesting Hamish had driven them in a great, green circle. Hyde Park was hundreds of acres, but eventually, all paths revealed it to be exactly what it was—a bucolic oasis in the middle of increasingly dense human habitation.
&nbs
p; Megan waited for Hamish to say more, but the silence stretched on. Had she given the wrong answer? Why had the discussion—much less the weather—become so bleak?
“Charlotte fancies herself a Whig,” Megan said. “Mostly, she likes to argue. Charlotte is frightfully smart.”
“Siblings tend to think that of themselves.”
“Charlotte is a great supporter of radical notions, freedom, equality, and fraternity prominently among them. She will harangue you about the decline of the monarchy, and the philosophical weakness inherent in the divine right of kings, until you want to leave the room with your hands clapped over your ears.”
Thunder rumbled off to the north.
“I do love you,” Hamish said. “Not only because you think leaving the room is a great rudeness.”
Megan ignored his attempt to distract her, because she had the sense her next words mattered. A lot.
“I have often wanted to ask my brilliant sister, what manner of freedom is delivered on the end of a French bayonet? What sort of equality requires a self-crowned emperor to ensure it? What variety of fraternity is earned by forcibly conscripting, and violently ending, the lives of countless hundreds of thousands? You fought for something honest and real, Hamish, so families wouldn’t starve, so your men would get home. Who has dared criticize you for that?”
Somebody apparently had. Maybe many somebodies.
A raindrop splatted onto the bench beside Megan, and Angus gave a shake of his harness.
“Ah, damn. Now I have you out in the wet,” Hamish said. “Take the reins for a moment, will you, Meggie?”
Megan accepted the ribbons, though she wasn’t wearing driving gloves, and had only a general notion where the path lay. The horses were perfect gentlemen, and trotted along smoothly despite the change of driver.
Hamish shrugged out of his topcoat and draped it about Megan’s shoulders. As more raindrops spattered down, she was enveloped in warmth, the fragrance of heather, and a lovely sense of rightness.
Talk of war had left her unsettled—Hamish hadn’t told her the whole of his situation, she was sure—but they had time to learn each other’s histories and each other’s hearts. The war was over, after all. Hamish had given her what protection he could from the weather, and he’d see her safely home.