The Lady and the Laird

by Maura Seger

  The Lady and The Laird

  Maura Seger

  Prologue

  Edinburgh, Scotland April, 1807

  And to my beloved granddaughter, Katlin Sinclair, I leave all else of my estate, most particularly the manor house known as Innishffarin, which has long served as the seat of our family."

  The solicitor, a thin, black-garbed man of a solemnity appropriate to his current task, looked up and surveyed the group gathered before him.

  There were six in all. Four were loyal servants of the late Isaiah Sinclair—two men and two women, recipients of modest inheritances that would nonetheless make the difference between poverty and comfort for them. The fifth was a woman of, as the French so wisely put it, a certain age, sumptuously dressed in the latest London fashion. The sixth person, also a woman, was much younger than the others, being barely in her twentieth year and resembling, even to the somber eye of the solicitor, nothing so much as a rare flower set down on otherwise barren ground.

  The ground in question was the solicitor's Edinburgh office, not far from High Street and within sight of the Palace of Holyrood of which the late lamented Mary, Queen of Scots, had been so fond. The day was cool but pleasant with a bright blue sky banishing the last of the winter chill.

  The solicitor, a Mr. Peebles by name, cleared his throat and resumed.

  "Said legacy being contingent on the aforesaid Miss Katlin Sinclair being resident at Innishffarin for no less than six consecutive months to be completed within the first year of my demise. Should she be unable to fulfill this condition for any reason, she shall stand in default of the legacy. In such eventuality, Innishffarin is to become the property of Laird Angus Wyndham of Wyndham Manor.

  "This I make to be my final and true testament signed this day of our Lord, seventh of March, 1807."

  In the silence that followed this announcement, several things happened at once. The servants exchanged glances that were at once knowing and titillated. That they were unsurprised did not suggest they had been in their employer's confidence, Isaiah Sinclair being closemouthed to the extreme. It merely signified that they were well aware of his fondness for bizarre and unexpected gestures.

  The older woman's response was more direct. "Live there!" she exclaimed. "Why, that's absurd. Absolutely out of the question. What could my late brother have been thinking of?"

  "I really don't know, Lady Margaret," Mr. Peebles said humbly. "Mr. Sinclair was not in the habit of confiding in me."

  "I can understand why not," she said huffily, "if you were no better able to convince him not to undertake such an absurd provision. Really, how could you have let him?"

  "Mr. Sinclair was not very accepting of counsel," the solicitor murmured. He withdrew a white lawn handkerchief from the pocket of his swallowtail coat and dabbed surreptitiously at his forehead.

  Lady Margaret snorted, a most unladylike sound but not surprising considering its source. Isaiah Sinclair had not been the only one in the Sinclair family given to unusual behavior.

  "My grandniece cannot possibly live at Innishffarin," Lady Margaret said. "The place is an absolute monstrosity. I left there forty—uh, hem—thirty years ago and it wasn't a moment too soon." She waved a beringed hand in the direction of the will. "You will simply have to change it."

  "He can't do that, Aunt," a soft voice said. Miss Katlin Sinclair had remained silent throughout the reading of her grandfather's will. Her only reaction to any of the provisions had been a mild nod or two of understanding as the benefices to the servants were read off. As to her own situation, her response was a model of restraint. The large brown eyes opened a shade wider and a light, becoming flush suffused her flawless cheeks, but apart from that she remained sweetly calm.

  Mr. Peebles breathed a sigh of relief. At least one of the Sinclair ladies behaved properly. A protective urge swept through him. Miss Sinclair was so lovely and so obviously incapable of comprehending, much less dealing with, the demands being placed upon her that he could not help but think Lady Margaret had a point.

  "I would change it if I could," he said chivalrously, "but my hands are tied. If it is any consolation to you, Miss Sinclair, and I sincerely hope that it will be, Lady Margaret is right about Innishffarin. To be frank, it is something of a ruin, utterly unsuitable to a young lady of your obvious attributes. While it is unfortunate to see it go out of the family, you might consider that you will in actuality be relieved of a significant burden. What Laird Angus will do with it, I cannot say, but he is far better equipped to deal with the problem."

  "I'm sure," Miss Sinclair murmured. Her voice was as soft and feminine as all the rest of her. Mr. Peebles was quite enchanted.

  "However," she added briskly as she stood up, "there will be no need for him to bother. I intend to keep Innishffarin."

  "What?" Lady Margaret exclaimed. "Dear child, have you gone quite mad? You heard what Peebles said, it's a ruin. And besides, you have absolutely no use for it. Certainly, Charles is never going to want to live there. As soon as you're wed, he'll dispose of it, so why not simply wash your hands of it now?"

  Miss Sinclair appeared to consider that for a moment. Her honey-blond head tilted slightly to one side. A gentle smile played over her lovely mouth. "I'm not sure," she admitted finally. "Perhaps just because I don't want to."

  Lady Margaret let out a groan. "Reason with her," she demanded of the unfortunate Peebles. "This isn't some romp in the country we're talking about. Innishffarin is... oh, heavens, I don't know where to begin. Talk to her, Peebles!''

  But what, really, could he say? The lovely Miss Sinclair had taken it into her beauteous head that she was not quite ready to part with her grandfather's bequest. Although she did agree to sit down again and listen to what both Peebles and Lady Margaret had to say—the latter doing most of the talking—in the end she was not swayed. When the ladies left the office an hour later, Miss Katlin Sinclair remained firm in her resolve. She was going to Innishffarin.

  "Not with me," Lady Margaret said flatly as they entered the carriage that had been waiting patiently for them. "I will not set foot there ever again, and since I won't, I really don't see how you are going to manage it."

  She sat back with an air of self-satisfaction and gathered the voluminous folds of her silk pelisse more comfortably around her. Much as she disliked denying her grandniece anything, this was one case where she simply had to.

  "Whatever reason you have for even considering such a folly, I'm sure you have not so taken leave of your senses as to ignore propriety. You would require a chaperone, and that I will not be."

  "I'm sorry," Katlin murmured quite sincerely, for she very much enjoyed her great-aunt's company. "However, I have Sarah with me. She will do well enough."

  Lady Margaret stared at her in dismay. "Sarah! That twit? You're not serious?"

  "She's really a very nice girl," Katlin said mildly, "it's merely that she's had a hard life. That's why I took her on to begin with."

  "Despite my telling you not to," Lady Margaret said. She was silent for a moment. Now that she thought of it, there had been past incidents when her grandniece had shown a surprising degree of stubbornness. Katlin was so beautiful and so sweetly ladylike that it was easy to overlook what with hindsight could be taken as harbingers of disaster.

  Resolutely, Lady Margaret decided to play what she believed to be her trump card.

  "Charles will never hear of it."

  Her grandniece sighed softly. With gentle regret, she said, "I'm afraid he will be ruffled."

  "Ruffled? My dear, he will be furious. Don't fool yourself, devoted though Charles is to you, he absolutely won't permit such a thing, and if you try to wheedle it out of him, you'll find quick enough what his reaction will be."<
br />
  "Oh, I wouldn't do that," Katlin said. "I wouldn't dream of it."

  "Then how," Lady Margaret demanded, "do you imagine you will win his approval?"

  "I don't," Katlin replied. She smiled her gentle smile. "But then, I don't need it, do I? After all, it isn't as though we were man and wife. Charles doesn't actually have any control over what I do."

  "But...but how do you expect to hold his affections if you assume such an attitude?" Lady Margaret demanded. "For mercy's sake, Charles Louis Devereux is the prime catch of the marriage mart. No one else even comes close. He's a baron with twenty thousand pounds a year, attractive, charming and a marvelous horseman. Eager mamas have been dangling their chits in front of him for a decade, and it's you he's settled on. You don't seriously mean to throw all that away?"

  "I mean," Katlin said quietly, "to do as my grandfather wishes. I shall simply have to count on Charles to understand that." She reached over and patted her great-aunt's hand gently. "Now don't you concern yourself. I shall manage perfectly fine. It's not as though I've never been to Innishffarin before."

  "You were six years old the last time you were there," Lady Margaret said. She sounded rather dazed, as though she couldn't believe—or comprehend—her gentle niece's determination. "You can't possibly remember what it was like."

  "Well, no," Katlin admitted, "but I do have the nicest possible feelings about it. I can't really explain why but somehow I associate it with all sorts of good things—shortbread and heather, for instance, pony rides and that marvelous light that comes up out of the sea at dawn." Her face took on a fond, faraway look.

  Lady Margaret rolled her eyes. "Try smoking chimneys, constant drafts, beds like torturers' racks, cold food and never, ever any hot water. And that's only the beginning. The place should have been torn down generations ago. It's dangerous, Katlin! You have no business being there."

  "I shall be fine," the young miss replied, "and you are not to worry. The truth is, I could use a break from London, and as for Charles, well, let us just say that this will be a good opportunity to gauge the constancy of his affection.''

  Lady Margaret shook her head in disbelief. Surely, this could not be happening.

  "You won't last the week," she said.

  Katlin laughed softly. "We'll see."

  But later, as she prepared for bed in her comfortable room at the Hotel Royale where she and Lady Margaret were staying, she thought over their conversation in the carriage and felt a little shiver of apprehension.

  Was she wrong to insist on going to Innishffarin? Charles would be angry, Lady Margaret was absolutely right about that. He might even break off their association, which meant she wouldn't marry a baron, wouldn't become very wealthy and wouldn't live the life of luxury and refinement she had been raised for. All of which ought to have concerned her deeply, but somehow didn't.

  Seated in front of the dressing table mirror, she brushed her long, honey-hued hair and wondered why she wasn't alarmed by the prospect. She liked Charles and he certainly seemed fond of her. With him, she was just what she was supposed to be—gentle, ladylike, sweet, the perfect adjunct to his masculine self.

  Why then did she feel it was all a pretense? That was who she was, wasn't it? It had to be since she'd never been given the chance to be anything else. But the stirrings she felt inside herself, the strange spurts of rebellion and unease, all suggested there was someone else, another part of her being that she had never quite dared to face.

  The part that wanted to go to Innishffarin.

  She was still mulling the matter over when her maid burst into the room.

  "Oh, miss!" Sarah exclaimed. "It's ever so sorry I am for being late. I went out to get those hair ribbons you wanted and I must have taken a wrong turn. Ended up in a little warren of streets, I did, not like London at all. I ask you, how's a person supposed to find her way about in such a place?"

  Bustling about as she talked, she removed her coat, dropped it on the bed, patted her bright red hair back in place and seized the brush from Katlin.

  "Here now, I'll do that. Ever so pretty you look. Everything go all right at the reading?"

  "Fine," Katlin murmured. As always, just having Sarah around cheered her. The small, plump girl from the East End had worked her way out of the direst poverty to secure the most coveted of all positions, shop assistant, only to be cruelly fired in Katlin's presence by that jumped-up harridan of a dressmaker, Madam Lucille Bankers, of whom the less said, the better. Katlin had, naturally enough, responded by reprimanding Madam, assuring her she would no longer be troubled by Katlin's custom, and offering Sarah a position as her maid. In the year since, she'd had very little reason to regret the impulse.

  "Don't worry about the ribbons," Katlin said. "I can do without them."

  "Oh, I got the ribbons," Sarah assured her. "It was only after that I got lost. Me own—sorry, my own-fault it was to be honest about it. I started looking around at everything and the next thing I knew, I had no idea where I was. Saw the palace, though, right nice it is, not like that great hulking castle on the hill. No wonder the poor queen liked the palace better."

  "I suppose," Katlin murmured.

  "Still and all, I'll be glad to get back to London." Sarah smiled at the thought. "Don't take me wrong now, Scotland's fine. Very nice for hunting and all that. But it isn't really, well, civilized, you know. And then there's ever so much to look forward to at home, the wedding and all." She smiled fondly at her mistress.

  "About that," Katlin said. She felt a moment's unease but stilled it firmly. Her mind was made up. "We won't be returning to London immediately."

  Sarah looked surprised. "We won't? Staying on to visit friends, are you?"

  "Not exactly. I've decided to spend some time at our family seat. It's on the coast northeast of here. It's called Innishffarin and I'm sure we're going to enjoy it very much."

  Sarah's small, rosebud mouth opened slightly. Three years older than her mistress, she was a pretty young woman with vivid green eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose that, while unfashionable, were, to Katlin's eyes at least, most becoming. Whereas Katlin strove resolutely to be a proper young lady, Sarah strove to survive. She exuded energy to match her fiery hair and she was as loyal as the day was long.

  But even she had her limits.

  "Innishffarin, you say? Not part of an actual town, is it?"

  "I believe there is a village," Katlin said.

  "A bit remote then?"

  "You could say that, but then so are most places in Scotland. Don't worry," she added with a laugh when she saw Sarah's perplexed expression, "it won't hurt you to be away from civilization awhile longer. In fact, you might enjoy it. Summer is the best time of all in Scotland and it will be that soon."

  "Summer? But miss, it's just gone April now. Summer's weeks away. You don't mean we'll be here that long, do you?"

  "Six months," Katlin said. She stood and smoothed her velvet evening dress, cut in the popular tunic style with a high waist secured just under her bust. The material was a deep, soft rose, which she particularly liked. Although it was cut relatively low at the front with elbow-length sleeves, it was warm enough for the time of year.

  Glancing at the dress in the mirror, she was reminded that it was one of Charles's favorites. Her brow furrowed slightly as she considered the letter she would have to write him.

  "Six months?" Sarah repeated, breaking into her reverie. She stared at her mistress in disbelief. "You aren't serious, are you, miss? I mean, six months here? That just can't be."

  "I'm afraid it must be," Katlin said gently. "I have no choice, you see. My inheritance depends on it."

  Sarah's mouth dropped yet further. "Blimey, knock me over with a feather. It's like something out of a French novel."

  Katlin laughed. "Come now, it isn't so terrible as that. We'll have a fun time, you'll see."

  "But miss, what about his lordship? What's he going to say to all this?"

  "I really can't gu
ess," Katlin admitted. "I suppose we shall have to wait to find out. But in the meantime, I suggest you begin packing. We will be leaving for Innishffarin as soon as I can manage it."

  Three days hence, they did.

  Chapter One

  "Ooh," Sarah said. She craned her head out of the window of the carriage and stared at the dark pile of stones that loomed above them. "We've taken a wrong turn, miss, I just know we have."

  Katlin joined her at the window. The coach rattled along, creaking and lurching on the rough road. They had been traveling for a day and a half, stopping overnight at an inn before continuing on in the early morning.

  A short time before, it had rained, but now the clouds were parting. Sunlight glinted over the rolling hillsides, already turning purple and white with heather, and lay in sparkling splashes of silver on the nearby sea.

  And, above all, the sun shone on Innishffarin. They were seeing the place at its best, which, more than anything else, dismayed Katlin.

  How could she not have remembered the place as it really was? Granted, the heather was still there and she had seen a few shaggy ponies along the way. There might even still be shortbread, for where was there not in Scotland?

  But this, this hulking, brooding pile of stone, was not at all what she had imagined. It was not a manor or a residence or even a house. It was a fortress, plain and simple, legacy of a warrior past with no concessions to the modern world. Heaven help her, what had they come to?

  "Never mind, Sarah," she murmured, "I'm sure it is far more comfortable than it looks." But inside, she was not at all confident. There was a proud ruggedness to the place that suggested little things like comfort might get scant notice.

  The carriage continued up the road that climbed higher and higher toward the fortress that surmounted the highest hilltop. From there, the view was spectacular. Katlin could see far down into the rolling valley and beyond to where the sea met the sky.

  Sarah moaned and closed her eyes. She wasn't good with heights. But Katlin found the perspective exhilarating and felt a little better in her spirit.