by Nichole Van
But here . . . there was no one.
Andrew climbed the front steps and sounded the door rapper.
Seconds passed. Then minutes.
Kieran grinned next to him. “Are ye sure yer in the right place, yer lordship?” he quipped.
Andrew simply stared at him, face impassive.
Naturally, this only encouraged Kieran. “Mayhap they dinnae know yer the new earl?”
“Haud yer wheesht.”
Andrew rapped again.
Kieran chuckled. And then leaned back, stepping outside the archway, scanning the impressive facade. “I could get us in one of these windaes, if ye decide tae storm the place.”
Andrew shook his head and rapped again.
“English lords are rather good at it . . . storming castles and the like.” Kieran said this nonchalantly, as if he was merely talking about the weather.
“Remind me again why we’re friends?”
“It’s ma fair looks. You cannae help yerself.”
Andrew was shaking his head when the door finally creaked open.
A harried, decidedly top-lofty butler faced them. Though English butlers likely only came in the ‘top-lofty’ variety, this one was a fine specimen of the breed. The man’s gaze flicked up and down, not missing one inch of Andrew’s flamboyant Highland kit.
“I trust you are with Lord Hadley’s retinue,” the man said, his tone two-parts bored and three-parts condescension. “The servant entrance is around back.” He pointed to the right.
And shut the door.
Andrew paused, braced his hands on his hips, looked at Kieran . . . and then sighed, shaking his head at the butler’s effrontery. Even a servant should be treated more kindly than this. The butler’s behavior was utterly insupportable.
Gritting his teeth, Andrew knocked again, this time more forcefully.
The same man answered the door.
“I am Lord Hadley,” Andrew said without preamble, stepping inside, “and you must be ma new butler.”
Andrew loomed over the man, giving him the steely gaze he reserved for insubordinate managers and, if needed, top-lofty butlers.
The man blanched, undoubtedly quickly calculating the likelihood of retaining his current position.
Kieran chuckled.
As the butler stammered his apologies, Andrew listened with amusement. He was quite sure it was wrong to be enjoying himself.
He couldn’t muster the energy to care.
By some divine miracle, Jane managed to drive herself back to Hadley Park along a side-lane and sneak up to her bedroom without encountering her mother. She might have been muddy, soaked, and frustrated, but thank goodness, she avoided a scolding for now.
Jane rang for her maid, pondering the ridiculousness of being twenty-four years old and fearing having to answer to her mother.
Of course, as she stripped off her wet gloves and waited for Mary to arrive, she repeated her encounter with the Scotsmen over and over in her head. Red Scot and his booming laugh, the shocking strength of his grip, the sheer power in his upper body to heft her, sodden skirts and all, so easily. Her arms still burned from the press of his hands.
Would the Scots inform Lord Hadley of their encounter?
Granted, Lord Hadley knowing wasn’t necessarily her concern. It was Lord Hadley mentioning it to her mother that was the true problem. But hopefully, she wouldn’t cross paths Red Scot once Hadley arrived. She would likely blush scarlet and reveal herself.
Case in point . . . just the thought of it sent heat flooding her face. Jane pressed her chilled hands to her cheeks.
Her wild, base inner-self had broken completely free for the first time in years. How could she have allowed that to happen? She had worked too hard— molding herself into a model of elegant womanhood—to regress now.
Become a lady . . . no one will want you otherwise.
She swallowed, pulling her trembling hands from her face and clenching them into tight fists, nails pressing inward.
Jane must make a brilliant marriage. That had been Montacute’s—and, therefore, her mother’s—lodestar for years. Montacute saw Jane as political leverage; her tendency toward ‘hoydenish’ behavior was an impediment to this.
In his will, her father had bestowed a generous dowry of thirty thousand pounds on Jane. The enormity of the sum, naturally, gave rise to fortune hunters.
To combat that inevitability, her father had wrapped the funds in tight legal bands. Most importantly, Montacute must approve of her choice of spouse. Only then, would her dowry be released to her new husband. Given the stringent requirements and her own struggles to rein in her baser self, Jane supposed it was no wonder she had endured five London Seasons without marrying.
Though Jane was often called handsome—not beautiful, not breathtaking—she knew she lacked the vivacity that made other women so appealing. Calling a woman handsome was a polite way of saying she was elegant and well-bred but missing the spark of true beauty.
Grimacing, she unbuttoned her spencer and then sat to peel her sodden stockings off her pruned feet.
When Jane made her debut, Montacute and her mother had even held out hope that one of King George’s younger sons—Prince Edward or Prince Adolphus—might take a fancy to her. Royal dukes almost always married other royals (usually cousins), but a royal duke who had six older brothers might be permitted to marry a rose of the upper English aristocracy. Montacute longed for a seat on the King’s privy council once George III finally passed on; her brother sought to use Jane as a foothold.
However, a marriage into the royal family had not been brokered, to Jane’s absolute relief. The royal dukes were a dissolute lot, and a life surrounded by the rigors of court etiquette distressed her.
From there, she had been expected to marry a non-royal duke or marquess. But, again, she had proved a disappointment, unable to keep her baser self completely subdued. She had remained too long in Hyde Park one May and freckled her cheeks so terribly she had to retire to the country in shame. Another year, she had referred to a middle-aged suitor, Lord Birchall, as ‘bloody repulsive’ in the man’s hearing. Montacute’s subsequent tongue-lashing had been particularly scathing.
By her fourth Season, Jane was nearly despairing. But that year, she had been taken with Lord Eastman, the young heir to a marquisate. He had been charming and, more surprisingly, Montacute had approved Lord Eastman’s courtship of her.
Lord Eastman had been attentive, taking Jane driving in Hyde Park and attending at-home hours. Unfortunately, Jane found herself enjoying his company too much, becoming a little too comfortable. As a result, during an outing to view the Royal Menagerie in the Tower of London, Jane had waved her arms and laughed loudly at the antics of a rambunctious monkey bouncing around its cage.
Eastman had withdrawn his suit the next day.
Montacute reported that Eastman had found her distasteful—overly-loud and vulgar being his precise words.
Jane had retired to her room for three days.
She had not loved Lord Eastman, but his withdrawal bleakly illustrated her own inadequacy. Her wild self had always threatened to strip away everything she held dear. First, Peter. And now, any chance at a suitable marriage.
Become a lady . . . no one will want you otherwise.
How was she ever to find a place for herself in this world? Marriage was the only option open to her and even that was hampered by Montacute’s lofty personal ambitions and her own inability to corral her baser impulses.
For her part, Jane would be content to marry a mere baron or even a knight, provided the man was solvent, reasonably young, and most importantly, kind. Actually loving her husband was a concept she had given up long ago. At this point, she would happily accept courtesy and respect.
Thankfully, her maid arrived and assisted Jane out of the rest of her wet clothing and into a dressing gown. The girl then left to order a warm bath drawn.
Jane towel-dried her hair, trying not to fret.
If incide
nts like today persisted—Jane being found wet, tumbled, and swearing in a stream—even her modest aims would not be possible.
She had managed to keep herself and Peter together all these years. She would not permit anything—not Hadley’s coming, not Montacute’s personal ambitions, not Peter’s anxiety over his future, and certainly not her own hoydenish behavior—to separate them now.
She was still pondering her resolve when her maid darted back into the room.
“We must hurry, my lady,” the girl said.
“Pardon?” Jane turned around.
“Your mother has requested your presence in the drawing room immediately. His lordship has arrived.”
“What did you say?” Jane asked, blinking. “His lordship?”
“Lord Hadley has arrived,” the girl repeated.
“But . . .” Jane’s mind blanked. “But . . . he isn’t expected until tomorrow.”
Though she supposed it explained his men in the woods. Hadley, himself, must have arrived via the principal road while his men rambled through the park on country lanes.
How typical of a Scot to flout all rules and arrive before they were prepared for him.
“Yes,” her maid replied. “I overheard that there must have been some confusion as to the date of his arrival. Regardless, he is here. We must make haste. Lord Hadley and her ladyship are waiting.”
6
Andrew prowled the boundaries of the silent drawing room. Kieran reclined in an over-stuffed chair, resting his heels on a convenient footstool.
The top-lofty butler, Barnsley by name, had stammered further apologies and shown both men into the drawing room with polite murmurs before hastily retreating.
That had been nearly an hour ago.
Andrew wasn’t sure how a new earl should be greeted, but he was quite positive this was not it.
The drawing room itself was much like the house, a hodge-podge of chairs, sofas, and decorative tables, all elegant but showing their age. A pair of enormous mullioned windows provided ample natural light, at least.
Andrew lifted the lid on a Chinese jar, peering inside. Empty. He then moved on to inspecting the various figurines lining the mantelpiece. They were French, delicately fussy, and not to his taste.
Mostly he avoided staring at the ancestral portraits crowding the walls, men and women in ruffs and powdered wigs with the occasional dog or cat thrown in. So many eyes looking down in judgment.
Andrew didn’t feel any particular attachment to them. He simply disliked the personal pain they represented—the group of people who had collectively decided that Andrew and his parents were not worth knowing because of their Scottishness.
He paused in front of a portrait of his great-grandfather. A small gold plaque attached to the bottom of the frame encapsulated it all:
John Henry Langston, 1st Earl of Hadley
Hero of Culloden
Andrew snorted, soft and low.
Hero of Culloden? More like cruel butcher.
One country’s champion was usually another’s merciless scourge.
Just looking at the first earl set Andrew’s skin to crawling. The man had been instrumental in the deaths of so many Scots.
Was it any wonder that hostility still simmered between Scotland and England?
Andrew vividly remembered trying to explain it to an American acquaintance once. They were seated in an inn in New York, and the man made some ignorant comment about how the Scots and English were essentially one unified whole.
Bloody hell had Andrew set the man straight in a hurry.
Andrew had started with the medieval Wars of Independence from England, summarizing the history of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. He moved on to the Scottish Stuart kings who eventually succeeded to the English throne upon the death of Elizabeth I. That should have been Scotland’s shining hour, but England disliked being ruled by Scots just as much as Scots disliked being ruled by English. Eventually, the entire country erupted into civil war.
This led to generations of endless conflict.
Ultimately, England executed and exiled her Scottish kings but kept Scotland as a vassal state. Outraged, Scotland wanted her independence returned.
The issue came to a head at Culloden in 1746 when an amassed Scottish army suffered catastrophic defeat at the hands of the English.
In Culloden’s wake, the conquering English crushed Scotland’s spirit and culture. The Scottish nobility were systematically stripped of their titles and lands. Scots Gaelic was banned, along with the kilt, the bagpipes, and every other emblem of Scottish civilization.
And even now, England pillaged Scotland just as thoroughly as it had in the Middle Ages. English landlords were currently clearing the land of unwanted tenant farmers, sometimes lighting a house on fire with people still inside. These ousted Highland crofters flooded into Glasgow and Edinburgh every month, refugees desperate for work to feed their families. Even more ironically, these unemployed Scots were conscripted into the English army in large numbers, forming the backbone of British Imperial forces around the world, fighting for a country that had brutalized their own.
By the end of Andrew’s tirade, his American friend had held up his hands in surrender.
And now Andrew was one of these damned English lords. Would his portrait someday sit beside that of the ‘Hero’ of Culloden?
He turned away from the portrait with a grimace.
Kieran yawned. “Ye suppose they’ll feed us eventually?”
Neither of them had eaten anything since breakfast. Kieran’s stomach grumbled loudly to underscore the point.
“Aye.” Unless his relatives intended to starve them out. It was a tried-and-true English tactic, after all.
“Maybe the new master of the house could ring up his butler and request some victuals?”
Andrew shot his friend a sharp look.
Kieran merely grinned in reply, enjoying himself far too much.
It wasn’t a bad idea, actually.
He took a step toward the bell pull but stopped at the sound of murmured voices outside the door.
A woman glided in, dressed in dark lavender satin edged with expensive lace. Her age was difficult to determine, as the lady had that sort of immutable look the wealthy often achieved. More importantly, a matching lace cap covered blond curls, declaring the woman’s marital status.
The woman had to be Lady Hadley, his late grandfather’s widow.
Andrew tamped down his surprise. Regardless of her actual age, Lady Hadley was clearly significantly younger than the old earl.
She spared him a wan smile. It did not touch her eyes.
“Lord Hadley.” She curtsied.
Andrew bowed. It was a reflexive gesture, quite at odds, he was sure, with the roughness of his dress.
“Lady Hadley, I presume,” he said.
She nodded, generations of aristocratic breeding in the motion. Her eyes flicked up-and-down his clothing before repeating the motion with Kieran. Her lips pressed into a stern slash.
“May I present ma friend, Master Kieran MacTavish?” Andrew gestured to Kieran who also executed a satisfactory bow.
Lady Hadley simply nodded in Kieran’s direction, every line of her rigid spine indicating her disdain for the connection, but unable to risk offending the new earl who effectively held her purse strings. She gestured for them to be seated before elegantly sinking into a sofa herself.
“I must apologize, my lord, as your arrival was somewhat unexpected.” Her words were innocuous but implied a world of criticism. After all, she had left them to cool their heels for over an hour. Even if they hadn’t been expected, it did not take sixty minutes to walk to the drawing room.
Kieran had the right of it; Andrew should have simply rung the butler and requested a repast.
“Nae bother.” Andrew shot her a polite, but assuredly annoying, grin. “I’m sure ye’ll be better prepared next time.”
Lady Hadley’s eyes widened, her nostrils flaring.
&nbs
p; “Thank you,” she replied, the words seemingly ripped from her throat, nearly choking her. “My children will be down shortly to greet you.”
The door cracked open again, admitting a footman carrying a tea tray. Finally.
Lady Hadley motioned for the footman to place the tray on the table in front of her. “May I offer you some refreshment, my lord?”
At least the hour delay hadn’t been entirely wasted.
“Thank ye, my lady. That would be verra appreciated.” Andrew took in the tray with its sparse biscuits and bite-size sandwiches. “Ye’ve a good cook here at Hadley Park?”
“Yes, Mrs. Morris is most competent.”
Andrew reached for one of the small sandwiches, dispatching it in one gulp. It was, indeed, delicious.
He surveyed the rest with pursed lips. It was a snack, at best.
“Would it be possible tae have something a little more substantial brought up?” he asked.
Lady Hadley’s expression froze further, if possible.
Andrew supposed the request was somewhat rude of him, had this been her house and he merely a guest.
But the fact of the matter was simple—this was now his home, and she was his guest, so him politely asking for a repast was most certainly not beyond the pale.
He refused to be relegated to the fringes of his own house—begin as he intended to carry forward.
“Of course,” Lady Hadley said, voice tight. “Allow me to step out and have the housekeeper set up a light luncheon in the breakfast room.”
Andrew nodded. “Thank you, my lady—”
She rose quickly, the motion cutting off Andrew’s words and forcing him and Kieran to scramble to their feet. Even Andrew’s manners couldn’t slip so far that he wouldn’t stand for a lady. The glint in her eye said she had risen so abruptly on purpose. It was petty and vindictive and exactly the kind of behavior Andrew had expected to encounter at Hadley Park.
She swept out of the room, eddying expensive French perfume and annoyed contempt.