“We’ll get through this, Mary,” Jane said with all the reassurance she could muster, “that’s why I’m here. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Mary nodded before returning into the house, leaving Jane alone with her thoughts and the chill of the winter London air.
If only she believed the words she just told Mary. It wasn’t that she didn’t think there was a chance that everything could be fine. It was only that she didn’t wish her sister had put all of her faith in her.
For Jane was lacking most of that faith in herself.
Duncan peered through the bushes from the opposite side of the road, taking a good look at the nondescript brick house that was, apparently, the vicarage. The church sat nearby, slightly larger than the houses that surrounded it but equally non-imposing.
Smoke puffed out of the house’s chimney, soon swept away by the chilly wind before more filled its place. The scent of fires from the entire neighborhood filled him, making him wish he was at home at Galbury Castle, sitting in front of the hall’s welcoming fireplace.
Instead, he was freezing his bloody arse off as he waited to rescue a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.
“Are we going to move, or sit out here and freeze to death?” Niall complained from beside him, while Keith let out a slight belch followed by an “Excuse me,” on the other side.
“We’re going to wait until the candle goes out inside,” Duncan said, before placing his hand on Niall’s arm to still him. “Look, someone is on the front step.”
“A woman or a man?”
“I can’t tell. We’re too far, and it’s too dark.”
“Someone else has come out now,” Keith added. “They look quite close.”
Duncan nodded, steeling himself against the simmering anger that often threatened, surprised when none was forthcoming.
“Is that the dodger?”
“I have no idea,” Duncan said, suddenly needing to be free of his friends. “I’m going to circle around and take a quick look in the windows. The two of you stay here.”
“But—” Niall began to rise.
“Stay here,” Duncan said, slowing his words. “I will be but a moment.”
He pushed himself out of his squat position, crossed the street, and crouched low once more as he made his way to the brick structure with its cone-shaped roof. He poked his head out around each corner before going by, and then stood on his toes in order to see within each window that he could find. He couldn’t forget Niall’s words — it seemed he was acting the bloody burglar, comparable to a common criminal, but he was only reclaiming what had been taken from him and his people.
The shadow was gone from the doorway now, and he prayed that his former betrothed was still awake while the minister slept on. It would make his abscondment much easier.
He crept over to the final side window, standing on his toes in order to see in. The room was fairly sparsely furnished, but there, in the corner, sitting on some kind of sofa was a woman bent over what he would guess to be a book. Long, straight, dark hair, shining in the light of the embers in the grate, floated down her back, telling Duncan all he needed to know. Here was the woman he had been engaged to, who he was supposed to marry not long after Hogmanay.
Now he would have to find another bride, and he wasn’t entirely thrilled about the prospect.
He crept around to the back door, pleased to find that the knob turned in his hand. The London minister should know better than that, he thought with a shake of his head. This was one of the reasons that he couldn’t leave her here with him — these Englishmen obviously had no idea how to properly care for their women. Even though she and Duncan would never now marry, at least she would be well protected by whatever Scot her father could entice to marry her after her scandalous escape.
Duncan shook his head at the silly whim of a young woman unsure of what she wanted in life.
But that would no longer be his problem. She was her father’s to worry about once more.
The back entrance opened into a small storage area, through which he found himself in a clean kitchen. The door off the kitchen opened up into a dining room that he had seen was one of the house’s front rooms, and beside it would be the drawing room where he had spotted the woman.
He eased open the door, finding the room to actually be rather inviting. He took careful steps into the living space. If she had come to London willingly — and, if he was being honest, he didn’t think the friendly vicar likely forced her — then chances were, she was not going to come back to the Highlands quietly. He leaned to the side in order to peer around the corner for a better glimpse of her, nearly bellowing out in surprise when a fat orange tomcat peered out at him instead.
Seemingly uncaring at his presence, the cat continued on, while Duncan looked in to see if the woman was sitting there. She was. He didn’t want this to resort to any violence, but nor did he want to stand out here all evening and risk an encounter with the minister. Best to get this over with as quickly and as quietly as possible.
In a few long, silent strides, he was across the room and behind her. Just as she picked her head up, he wrapped an arm around her waist and placed his hand over her mouth so that she couldn’t call out, although he made sure she could breathe. He leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“I’ll not hurt you. Come with me willingly. I’m here to help.”
She stiffened in his arms, but nodded haltingly, and he leaned over, blew out her candle, and then lifted her and steered her through the darkness of the room and back the way he had come. As soon as they were outside the door and he had kicked it shut, he wrapped her up in the plaid she had been wearing over her legs and threw her up over his shoulder.
As soon as her mouth was free, she surprisingly stayed silent. Perhaps she was smart enough to realize that the night was cold and there was no one on the street — except Niall and Keith.
“You stole her?”
Duncan threw Keith a dark look as they left their hiding spot to meet him in the middle of the street, but didn’t answer his question. He should understand the way of it.
They rounded the corner to where they had left the hack they had hired, and Duncan tossed her on the seat before Niall and Keith crawled in after him.
The girl stuck her head out the window.
“Excuse me, sir, but I—”
Duncan had his hand back over her mouth before she could call the hackney cabby’s attention toward her.
“I told you to keep your mouth shut,” he muttered in her ear from between gritted teeth and she squirmed from where he held her against his side on the seat. “We’ll speak more when we arrive. It isn’t far,” he continued, and mercifully she settled into peaceful silence.
Somehow, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to last long.
Chapter 2
Jane had never really considered the idea of being kidnapped. After all, who would ever want to take her? She was no stunning beauty. Her father was respectable, but he was no one who would wield any particular power.
Had she thought of it prior to it actually happening, however, she would have hoped that in such an event she would maintain a sense of calm and practicality that would see her through the ordeal.
As it happened, she was rather proud of her ability to contain her emotions throughout her current situation.
But then, she was also very much aware of her captor’s identity.
The moment he had leaned down and whispered in her ear to stay put, she had known by that deep, husky, unmistakeable voice exactly who he was.
Duncan McDougall.
Everyone who lived in her part of the world knew of the son of the McDougall chieftain. He was, physically, one of the largest men she had ever seen. But even more than that, he was a mountain of a man in every sense she could imagine. Gruff, intimidating, unbending, just like his father. Mary had hated the thought of marrying Duncan from the start, while Jane had met him only a handful of times.
There w
as the chance he felt wronged after her sister had broken their betrothal and run away with Billy Miller, but Jane would never have thought he would go to such lengths to retaliate against their family. Besides, her father had been as irate as anyone over what had happened. So why take her and how had he even known she was in London?
Well, she would ask him, just as soon as he “allowed” her to speak. It was all quite annoying. She had been rather comfortable in the sitting room chair, reading her book, and this little foray to wherever he thought he was taking her was all quite inconvenient. She only hoped that her sister wouldn’t wake up and worry about where she had gone.
The vehicle came to a jolting halt, and Jane was thrown forward, until strong hands wrapped around her arms and held her up.
“If I lead you, will you walk?”
She nodded curtly, taking the bastard’s hand as he led her down the steps of the hack and onto the hard ground below. It was freezing, and she wondered if it was going to snow.
Which was quite a silly thing to be thinking at this point in time.
“Up we go,” he said as they came to what seemed to be stairs — rather rickety ones at that. They swayed underneath their weight as they ascended, and Jane looked behind her at the other two figures who accompanied them, but she couldn’t make them out in the darkness.
When they entered the building, the wind ceased, although it was still not particularly warm.
“Stoke the fire, will you?” Duncan asked his companions as he led her to sit on a piece of furniture that was quite soft, if nothing else.
Jane turned her head to take in the room around her. It wasn’t much — there was a round wooden table with a few mismatched chairs surrounding it, the sofa she was currently sitting on that had seen better days, and a plain fireplace with a few embers still burning within that the third man was currently stoking.
When her gaze came to rest on Duncan, he finally took a good look at her, and his crystal blue eyes went wide as he froze, one hand in his far too long unruly brown hair.
“You’re not Mary.”
Jane quirked an eyebrow. Ah. He had mistaken them. “I most certainly am not.”
“But—” He looked around the room at the other two men. One stood near the door, the other was by the fireplace.
“Hello, Niall,” she greeted the one standing. She wasn’t acquainted with the third man.
“Jane!” Niall’s face creased into a large smile as he strode across the room and bowed over her hand as though she were the queen of England. “How lovely to see you.”
“You do realize the three of you just abducted me?” she asked, standing now so that she was on even footing with them. She was not the boldest woman there ever was, but she was also not particularly pleased with the sequence of events.
“Jane?” Duncan said, squinting clearly, obviously not placing her. She sighed inwardly, but managed a small smile.
“You do not know me, then?” she asked, and he shook his head nearly imperceptibly.
“You are familiar…”
She held her tongue between her teeth as she raised her eyebrows.
“Yes. I am rather forgettable, aren’t I? Jane Campbell,” she introduced herself. Again. “Mary’s sister.”
“You don’t know Jane?” Niall cut in. “You’ve met her before, Dunc, I’m sure of it.”
“He has,” Jane confirmed. “Quite a few times.”
Duncan was rubbing his forehead, his handsome, sculpted face twisted in consternation.
“Listen, Duncan,” she said, folding her hands together, wishing she was wearing something besides the plain cotton dress she had donned for an evening alone, “you were quite obviously looking for Mary, but I must tell you that she has…” Jane paused for a moment, collecting the right words, trying to determine a kind way to ease the truth without inciting Duncan’s famous anger. “Well, she has moved on. I know you were engaged to be married, and she really should have spoken to you directly rather than simply run away, but she knew my father would never allow it. Anyway, she is quite happy now, and she will not be returning to Scotland.”
Duncan offered no words but continued to stare.
She considered him. “Did you really think abducting her was the best way to win back her affections?”
Duncan glowered at her in silence for a moment before sighing and beginning to pace the room. Niall was watching him with amusement, while the other man who had jauntily introduced himself as Keith with a wave from the fireplace seemed quite entertained by the entire display in front of him.
“I have no intentions of winning her back,” Duncan muttered.
“No?” Jane said, tilting her head in curiosity. “Then why would you come all this way?”
“I am taking her back,” he said, stopping his pacing and laying his hands out in front of him, “to your father.”
“Goodness,” Jane said, taken aback by the news. “I knew my father was upset, but I never thought he would go to such lengths.”
“We had a discussion following Mary’s… departure,” Duncan explained gruffly. “I would never forcibly marry a woman, of course, but your father implored me to fetch your sister. He asked me to take it on as a job, if nothing else, but I did so due to his long loyalty to the McDougalls over the years.”
“I see,” Jane said, tilting her head down, saddened by her father’s inability to understand that Mary had taken the actions she did in order to find happiness for herself, and questioning how much Duncan’s own pride had played into his decision to do her father’s bidding. “But Mary does not want to go. In fact, she will not go. Her life is here now, in London.”
“What are you doing here, Jane?” Niall interjected. He had been a friend of hers since she was a child as her home was in Aldourie, between the McDougall and MacTavish lands.
“I am here visiting my sister, of course,” she said, uninterested in providing Duncan with the full details of her reasons for being in London.
“Does your father know you’re here?” Duncan asked gruffly. “He never said anything about you when I last spoke with him.”
Jane hedged before answering. “He will by now.”
Duncan’s head snapped up, and he looked at her with eyes wide in astonishment. “You left without telling him as well.”
“I left a note,” Jane defended herself with a shrug as guilt coursed through her anew at her deception, but it had been the only way. “You must have met with him just as I was planning to leave. And I am not here forever. I will return in a couple of months’ time.”
“You will return with me,” Duncan said, folding beefy arms across his chest, and Jane had to forcibly prevent herself from rolling her eyes at his inability to realize that not everyone responded to his every whim. “You and your sister. We shall fetch her in the morning.”
“You will do no such thing,” Jane said quietly. “Mary will be staying in London. As will I.”
Duncan advanced on her, clearly trying to intimidate her, but despite everything within her crying out to retreat, Jane forced herself to hold her ground and not move back an inch. It led to her vision being filled with his chest, which was straining beneath the white linen shirt he wore over top.
“You will,” he repeated. “Or else…”
“Or else what?” she asked, calling him on his bluff, and he let out a loud “humph,” and strode away, causing Jane to grin, an expression Niall returned. He was obviously enjoying seeing someone stand up to his friend.
“Or else, we will forcibly take you both.”
Jane sighed. She hadn’t wanted to offer up this information, but it seemed she had no choice.
“Mary cannot travel at the moment,” she said, finally looking up to meet Duncan’s eyes.
“Why not?” he asked with exasperation, raising his hands out to his side.
“Because,” she said as she calmly explained, “Mary is with child, and it is a very delicate situation.”
Duncan didn’t say a word in res
ponse. He didn’t have to. His expression said it all.
With child? The woman had left the Highlands less than a month ago. While Duncan hadn’t yet had the opportunity to procreate — that was to have come after his marriage to Mary — he was well aware of how these things worked, and he would have assumed that it would take far longer for Mary to even discover that she was expecting. How would Jane know of it?
“You are quite obviously lying,” he scoffed, “for there has not been enough time.”
Jane looked at him as though he were soft in the head, an expression that he had been the recipient of far more often than he would have liked since she had arrived… although he supposed “arrived” was a strong word for how she had come to be here.
“Billy — the minister — had been travelling through Scotland over the spring and summer,” Jane slowly explained, and Duncan was momentarily distracted by her wide blue eyes — the color of the loch next to Galbury Castle, he noted. “When he arrived in Aldourie to visit his cousin, he met Mary and they were quite… taken with one another. That was April. He continued travelling and returned a couple of months later. As it’s December now… there was plenty of time for a baby to be created. Mary and I were quite creative in hiding her… situation.”
Many women would speak of such subject matters with a great deal of blushing and much less forthrightness, but Jane Campbell did not seem to be overly affected. Interesting.
Duncan did feel quite the dobber for not having remembered meeting her. She was pretty, but in a plain sort of way upon first glance. Had she not said anything to him at the time of their acquaintance, he could see why he might not have paid her any notice — especially if Mary was in the room, for she seemed to overwhelm every conversation. Had Jane spoken to him in the same manner she was now, however, then he knew he would never forget her.
And now that he had the opportunity to converse with her further… once he had stopped pacing and was actually focusing on what she was saying, it seemed that it just might make a difference in his next actions. He noticed the small scattering of freckles over her pert nose, eyes that pierced right through him, and lips that seemed to continually be nearly quirking into a smile.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1) Page 72