Scandal's Splendor (Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Book 4)

by Collette Cameron

  Mrs. Wetherby’s head disappeared beneath the robes for a moment.

  Taking another swig from the flask she stashed in her cloak’s interior pocket, no doubt. That detail—the frequent libation of strong spirits—she’d forgone mentioning during her lengthy interview with Seonaid and the Needhams.

  More muffled murmurs about dying emerged from the lap robes.

  Die? Absolutely not.

  Seonaid refused to perish on this wretched stretch of Highland road in the company of a cursing rector and a whining sot.

  Forcing in a steadying breath, she patted Mrs. Wetherby’s mittened hand. Though thirty years her senior, the woman trembled and sniveled like a wee bairn.

  “We’re not going to die. An inn lies a little farther along, and we’ll seek lodgings there. A toasty fire to warm us, hot food in our stomachs, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and soon this will seem like a grand adventure.” Not likely, but the words sound reassuring. “Surely this storm will have abated by tomorrow.”

  A horse whinnied, and more yelling echoed from the drivers.

  Leaning forward, Seonaid scraped at the window, vainly trying to dislodge the frozen coating.

  A twinkling later, all movement stopped.

  Chapter 2

  Seonaid strained to see beyond the window and hear what caused the coach to stop.

  Had they arrived? Or were they finally stuck?

  God help them if the latter was the cause.

  Muted voices called to one another, and a light appeared outside the door. A moment later, a man, so bundled only his merry blue eyes twinkled above his scarf, extended his hand.

  “Let’s get ye inside and warmed. I be Angus Kerrigan, and my wife and I own the Hare’s Foot. Hot mulled wine be awaitin’ ye. And fresh tea and cock-a-leekie soup too. Come now.”

  The tension easing from her shoulders, relief swept Seonaid, and she slumped against the seat, savoring her first deep breath in hours.

  Reverend Fletcher clambered to exit the chaise first, roughly knocking Mrs. Wetherby onto her bottom and sending her flask skittering into a brick.

  Sputtering and fussing, she righted herself and frowned. Jabbing a finger after his scurrying form, Mrs. Wetherby retrieved her flask. “He’s no gentleman.”

  “Nae. He be an inconsiderate, selfish oaf.” Una gestured for Seonaid and Mrs. Wetherby to alight. “Get ye within. Ye both look nigh on to collapsin’.”

  Moments later, a blast of welcoming, fragrant warmth engulfed Seonaid. She sniffed. Wood smoke, fresh bread, meat of some kind, and if she wasn’t mistaken, Scotch pies. She inhaled again. Oh, and shortbread.

  Grumbling its displeasure, her stomach constricted, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since dawn.

  Mrs. Wetherby made straight for the soot-stained hearth, hovering so close, her skirts were in danger of igniting. Still wearing mittens, she accepted a steaming cup of mulled wine and a roll from a cheerful maid. For the first time in hours, a hint of color touched the chaperon’s plump cheeks as she happily munched and sipped.

  She whispered something to the servant, and after a startled glance and brief nod, the girl wove her way amongst the tables to speak to Mr. Kerrigan.

  His grizzled brows danced in apparent surprise before he shrugged a beefy shoulder and produced a generous finger’s worth of whisky.

  The maid delivered the spirit to Mrs. Wetherby, who tossed back the umber liquid in a single gulp, and afterward, peered longingly at the empty tumbler.

  Well, at least she wouldn’t be a nervous ninny all night, and if history repeated, she’d be foxed in an hour. And snoring loudly in two.

  Facing the grinning, rosy-faced Mrs. Kerrigan, wiping her hands on her less than pristine apron, Seonaid smiled in genuine appreciation. As soon as she’d secured lodgings, she meant to dive into a hearty Scotch pie. “I shall need two rooms, please.”

  “I be sorry, Miss, but the vicar claimed the last empty chamber. He insisted, even though I suggested with two beds, ye ladies should have it.” The look she speared the cleric would’ve charred a goose’s rump feathers. Lifting her apologetic gaze, she fiddled with something in her apron’s pocket. “He threatened to call down the Almighty’s disfavor and curse me and my kin if’n I refused to let him have it.”

  He would, the repugnant churl.

  What kind of reverend exploited people’s fears?

  “Ye and the other ladies be welcome to sleep before the common room’s hearth. We’ve plenty of extra pallets and blankets. Ye bein’ a lady, I might be able to borrow a privacy screen from a chamber fer ye.”

  Untying her bonnet, Seonaid strove to curb the insults she yearned to toss at Reverend Fletcher’s head. Nae, not toss. Pummel him with. As soon as she arrived home, a serious conversation with Ewan was in order. Fletcher simply couldn’t take Reverend Wallace’s place.

  Divested of his greatcoat, Reverend Fletcher ate with gusto, taking hefty draughts from his tankard between huge bites. More than once, his mouth worked as his distrusting gaze darted from person to person, though the guilty boor studiously avoided looking in her direction.

  Talking to himself or praying? Queer one, he was.

  Don’t judge others, Seonaid, Mother’s soft voice chastised.

  Well, he was rather off-putting. And sometimes, the unvarnished truth needed saying, whether it sounded judgmental or not.

  Desperate to do something with her hands lest she clench them in anger or smack the vicar atop his weirdly parted, oily hair with one of her bulging valises, Seonaid removed her silk lined, ermine rimmed bonnet. Containing several medicinal journals, the bag would pack a nice wallop. Maybe it would darken his daylights or knock some common decency into him.

  Surely Fletcher comprehended the women would be forced to sleep on the muddy, footprint covered floor, and yet he’d still claimed the last chamber. So far, she hadn’t observed a single Godly virtue in the man. What possessed Ewan to retain the toad for the parish?

  Seonaid pursed her mouth and willed her disgruntled musings to cease.

  As Mother often proclaimed, people weren’t always what they claimed or seemed, and a wise person valued others for their character, not status or abilities.

  Vicar Fletcher would do well to apply those concepts.

  Seonaid raised her gaze to the dusty, roughly hewn, cobweb strewn rafters and dragged in a deep breath.

  Una and Mrs. Wetherby wouldn’t take the sleeping arrangements well. Each suffered from sore bones, and the teeming taproom hinted others might also be without a room tonight. Mrs. Wetherby’s fussing and grumbling already rang in Seonaid’s ears.

  Perhaps she ought to encourage Mrs. Wetherby to imbibe heavily tonight, if only to spare Seonaid her complaints.

  A scraggly-toothed Highlander grinned at Seonaid before nudging his equally filthy, tartan-clad friend and whispering something. The pair broke into guffaws, earning them curious looks from those nearby and sending a shudder rippling along her shoulders.

  Their size, long dirty hair, and orangey-red plaid identified them as Blackhalls, a pox amongst the Highlanders, and since they’d abducted her sister, Isobel, the McTavishes’ sworn enemy.

  Sure as snow still sifted from the sky, Seonaid wouldn’t close her eyes tonight. Weariness engulfed her, and she released a silent sigh. Lord, she couldn’t remember when she’d been this exhausted, and that she’d, in part, brought the state upon herself—fine, mostly been responsible for it—vexed all the more.

  Sleep had eluded her before her departure from London, and a casket boasted a more comfortable sleeping surface than the thin straw mattresses she’d tossed and turned upon the past two nights. Not possessed of a complaining or peevish nature, the remnants of Seonaid’s forbearance had disappeared with the last gust of wintery wind.

  “Do you, perchance, have a private parlor I can rent instead of a boarding room?” At least a parlor would afford privacy, and perhaps it contained a settee or two for Una and Mrs. Wetherby to sleep upon.

  Shaking he
r head, Mrs. Kerrigan gave Seonaid a remorseful smile. “It be taken fer the night by two families travelin’ together.”

  Ye gods. How many people sought shelter within the cramped inn?

  Homesick, fatigued, tired of strangers and Mrs. Wetherby’s whining, Seonaid longed to crawl into her downy bed at Craiglocky and sleep for a week.

  “Very well. There’s no help for it.” Lifting a shoulder, she summoned a half-smile. “At least we shall be warm and fed.”

  “Donnez à ces femmes the vicar’s chamber. He can share mine.”

  Seonaid stiffened.

  That voice.

  A slightly French-accented baritone she’d hoped to never have to hear again. One which had haunted her for months.

  Reverend Fletcher’s head snapped up so rapidly, he poked himself in the cheek with his forkful. Mouth plunging downward, he snatched his serviette, then angrily wiped away the gravy trickling a greasy path to his pointed chin.

  Spine rigid, Seonaid schooled her face into unyielding angles, a string of oaths no refined lady had any business knowing whizzing across her mind in rapid succession.

  Why must she continually run into Jacques, Monsieur le baron de Devaux-Rousset? Especially presently, when her reserves wouldn’t half fill a child’s thimble and only supreme self-control kept her from shrilly telling him and the reverend to go bugger themselves.

  Partially turning her head, she met Monsieur le baron’s boldly amused gaze before his focus dropped to her mouth, and his lips inched upward. Had a woman besides her ever spurned his attention? Certainly none she’d witnessed while in France.

  She barely managed to check her frown. Gads, she’d be a wrinkled crone by one-and-twenty if she encountered Monsieur de Devaux-Rousset regularly.

  Raven brows swooped low over his hooded coffee-bean black eyes, framed by impossibly thick eyelashes. His full mouth slid into its familiar sideways smirk above a chin a jot too strong to be classically handsome, but which suited him perfectly.

  The half-inch white strip to the left of his mouth didn’t detract from his devilish good looks either, blast it all. In fact, the scar gave him a debonair, dashing, buccaneer appearance.

  Which, from the confident glint in his eyes, he was all too aware.

  Attired in buckskins, a deep russet hunting coat complemented by an ochre and claret striped waistcoat, and a nattily tied neck cloth from which winked a jasper pin, he exemplified peerage perfection. An unexpected, unexplainable, but delightfully naughty urge to see him with his shirt collar open and sleeves rolled to his elbows swept over her.

  She blinked to clear her muddled—disquieting—thoughts, and purposely redirected her suggestive ponderings.

  Did his mustache hide more scarring? How had he come by it?

  That question arose each time they met, and still, she’d never acquired the gumption to ask him. Not only wasn’t she forward, but polite conversation between them wasn’t their forte. They usually ignored or avoided one another.

  Or bickered like scolding squirrels.

  As unwelcome as fresh horse droppings in the salon, recollections of their meetings beset her memory. Every time Seonaid encountered Monsieur le baron, he brought out her worst traits, characteristics she didn’t know she carried, sequestered deep within, and she didn’t like herself afterward. She’d always prided herself on her kindness and mellow temperament.

  People expected her benevolence.

  She expected it of herself.

  That was what came from the odious man presuming she was the courtesan he’d arranged to clandestinely meet at the last play she’d attended in Paris. She closed her eyes for a fraction, humiliation’s heat bathing from her chest to her hairline, no doubt leaving her cheeks glowing like hot coals.

  The scene taunted her still, as did his clean, manly scent. Slightly spicy, but also musky with a hint of fresh linen.

  Though her family assumed homesickness compelled her early return from France, truth be told, he was the reason for her swift departure. Hopefully, they’d never learn of the near ruinous scandal.

  “We meet yet again, Mademoiselle Ferguson.” His amused tone grated, immediately sparking exasperation. “I suspect Fate must have a hand in our encounters, non?”

  No. Definitely not.

  Even Fate wasn’t that perverse or cruel.

  Seonaid reluctantly opened her eyes, angling her head in the merest greeting. “Monsieur. I thought”—prayed—“I’d seen the last of you in London.”

  “Ah, I’m delighted that isn’t the case, ma petite. Dare I hope you feel the same, oui?” Jacques chuckled at the startled expression upon Mademoiselle Ferguson’s face. Or perhaps piqued better described the look.

  As intended, he’d miffed her.

  She quickly tried to hide her emotions with her typical demure composure, but the minutest jut of her dainty chin betrayed her agitation.

  He couldn’t say he wasn’t pleased to see her, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual. She provided a splendid visual feast.

  Still, he oughtn’t to tease her. A gentleman wouldn’t.

  Attired in a cherry red mantle, which accented her toasty-brown chestnut locks and satiny-white skin to perfection, she was, as always, exquisite. And fagged to death, if he read her correctly.

  Could be, seeing him caused her haggard expression. However, he preferred to believe her harrowing journey in this storm triggered her upset, and not the sight of him. The last notion rather bruised his manly pride.

  Many a man, and woman, had lost his or her life in a raging winter tempest such as the one currently pummeling the Scottish Highlands. He’d been half-frozen himself by the time he made the Hare’s Foot Inn.

  At first, when her melodious speech carried to him in his secluded corner, he believed the two Scotches he’d downed to warm himself had him half-foxed already. Or his nighttime imaginings now manifested in the daylight.

  No other woman owned such a soothing, musical voice, and when Jacques glimpsed her, and realized she was actually at the inn, he’d gulped his third Scotch to prevent himself from throttling the vicar for his unchivalrous behavior.

  Taking the last remaining chamber.

  Forcing elderly women and a lady of quality to sleep on the filthy floor.

  What sort of a selfish, uncharitable knave did that?

  The solution to Mademoiselle Ferguson’s dilemma was simple enough, but would she accept Jacques’s offer, or would obstinacy choose for her? She’d made it emphatically clear she couldn’t abide him, and instinct told him she’d not take kindly to being in his debt.

  Her older traveling companion slumped into a chair and closed her eyes, causing Mademoiselle Ferguson’s winged brows to tweak together. Concern pinching her face, she fidgeted with her bonnet’s crimson ribbons, her astute regard sliding to the other woman she’d entered with, also dozing near the fire.

  His chance to entice.

  Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, his conscience chastised.

  “Your companions are weary, non?” He flicked his forefinger toward the snoozing women. The servant’s head bobbed as she tried to keep a watchful eye on her ward, and the older woman’s chin rested upon her chest, her sonorous snores reverberating off the rafters. Not a whole lot of chaperoning going on there, by any measure.

  Mademoiselle Ferguson worried her lower lip with her neat, white teeth, and a wavy tendril, escaping her upswept hair, brushed her cheek.

  That night in Paris, her beauty had befuddled him, and he’d stolen a highly satisfying taste of those sweet lips, earning him a stinging slap for his audacity. It had been worth it. Would be worth it again, truth to tell.

  As she stood in the entrance, shoulders drooping and barely able to keep her head up, an irresistible desire to protect her overwhelmed him. He stared, stupefied, for an extended moment.

  Dangerous, that.

  Half-lowering his eyelids to block the tantalizing view, he collected his scattered wits.

  He couldn’t permit himsel
f feelings, for if his share in Oakberry Quarry, a Scottish silver mine, didn’t prove a profitable venture—a very profitable venture since he’d invested the last of his funds and borrowed against his property—he would have no recourse but to marry an heiress in order to save le Manoir des Jardins.

  Perhaps a cossetted American keen for a title but who would expect nothing from her husband in the way of affection. If she preferred to remain in America, all the better.

  Unlike many other French aristocrats, his lands weren’t entailed, nor had they been seized during the revolt and restored to him afterward. Six generations of Devaux-Roussets had been born, lived, and died in the château. Not doing everything within his power to save the manor and lands didn’t bear contemplating.

  The blood of his ancestors—his sister’s, brother-in-law’s, and nephew’s, too—had been spilled defending le manoir. By God, he’d do whatever necessary, short of selling, to preserve her splendor.

  His family deserved that much.

  So, he’d ventured to Scotland and had three months to determine whether his mining gamble paid off. His creditors, Père’s creditors as well, wouldn’t wait much longer.

  Mortgaged to her glorious spires and turrets, the mansion had fallen into decay. Her war-ravaged lands produced scant more than a handful of scraggy garden patches, more weed than vegetables, and a few scrawny sheep.

  With a promise of payment in full in three months, he’d barely staved the creditors from confiscating anything not nailed down.

  Resisting the urge to tuck the silky curl teasing Mademoiselle Ferguson’s cheek behind her ear, he entwined his hands at his lower back.

  Consternation bracketing her mouth, she twisted her lips back and forth. Was she aware she did that when nervous or thinking?

  Capturing those lips beneath mine again would still the tantalizing motion.

  “Well, Mademoiselle? What say you?” Smoothing his mustache, he concealed a smile at her transparent reluctance.