Mischief and Mistletoe

by Jo Beverley; Mary Jo Putney; Patricia Rice; Nicola Cornick; Anne Gracie; Joanna Bourne; Susan Fraser King; Cara Elliott

  The pounding increased, and shouts followed. Cristina leaped from her narrow bed and ran to the box bed in the wall, where Patrick lay asleep. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and she drew him close, pulling a plaid blanket around both of them. He was warm, solid, and sleepy against her, and even so young, he knew to be silent.

  Outside the dog barked and someone shouted again. The dog quieted, perhaps led away by someone—or worse, simply silenced. Cristina shuddered.

  “Johnny Shaw!” a man called, beating on the door. “Open up!”

  Cristina held Patrick tightly. He was five, trembling with fright, and she was ten, old enough to watch him. Later Da would sing to them while Mama served hot tea with extra sugar. The midnight trips brought sweets along with laces, baubles, whisky, and coin for the coffers.

  “Hush, now, hushabye,” she sang to Patrick.

  “I’m not a bairnie,” he pouted, but tucked his tousled head under her chin. Moonlight gleamed over his golden curls and clear blue eyes, so like hers, like Johnny Shaw’s.

  Da was running the whisky in casks stacked under hay in pony carts. He and others often guided such loads across the hills to the river, where men took the goods by boat to the sea and to England and beyond. Smugglers traveling in large groups were rarely stopped by the excise men. Only two gaugers would be on patrol tonight against thirty or more smugglers, she knew.

  “We may be fools,” Da had once told his wife, “but bold fools, and rich fools one day, love. And then I will run the peat-reek no longer, I promise.”

  What her father did was dangerous, but otherwise he was laird of his lands and also the glen’s dominie. A kind and interesting teacher, he especially loved history. The students enjoyed learning from him, and all who lived in the glen loved the songs Johnny Shaw would sing in his mellow voice. And so they looked the other way when their freebooting schoolteacher and others moved goods to and from the glen, especially ankers of free-trade whisky. Cristina had only tasted whisky in small doses when she was sick. But once she was grown, she would sip a dram each day if she liked; that was done by even the finest Scottish ladies.

  One day she would be a fine lady, so Da had promised, along with an education for her and her brother. Johnny Shaw also promised to earn a fortune to keep his family happy and safe, with no more fear of the risks in the night. And he said Cristina would marry well someday.

  But tonight the risks for him were great. Earlier, a neighbor had come to the door and then Mama had gone out, leaving her children guarded by the dog outside until she returned.

  More knocking, more shouting. Cristina huddled with Patrick, and touched a locket round her neck, an heirloom once worn by her great-great-grandmother, Lady Grisell Cochrane. Just now Cristina wished she could be as brave as that lady, who had faced danger to save her father. Cristina’s own father, John Heron-Shaw—his true name—descended directly from Lady Grisell. Even if Cristina could not help her father this night, she could protect her brother.

  “Johnny Shaw!” Furniture scraped over the floor, and cupboard doors snapped open. Hobnailed boots pounded on the wooden steps in the two-story stone house. “Come out, ye coward! Pay the fee you owe the Crown—or be arrested!”

  “No one is here, Rutledge,” another man said.

  “Then we’ll take what we like, since Johnny owes the government so much in whisky taxes. If we cannot earn our fee by arresting him, we’ll take it from his home and later his hide.”

  Cristina pulled the plaid higher over Patrick. On the ground floor she heard dishes smashed, doors slammed, boots stomping and voices everywhere. Mama had some good things that she treasured—suddenly Cristina was so angry that she wanted to run down and tell the men to leave, tell them that Da was a good man and better than any gauger.

  Her father and his comrades said the English government demanded fees for whisky even though every Scotsman deserved the right to use his barley as he pleased for bread and drink, and to sell, too. But gaugers earned their pay by the arrests they made and the goods they confiscated, so they sometimes raided homes to take their fee there.

  Shadow and light filled the doorway. Cristina went still.

  A man walked into the bedchamber, holding a lantern high as he turned. Light reflected on window glass and around the room, then streamed into the box bed where the shutter door gapped, revealing the red plaid and illuminating Cristina’s face.

  She stared at him, her hand clamped over Patrick’s mouth. The intruder moved closer. She pressed against the wall with her brother.

  “Hey, Ned!” the one called Rutledge said from the hallway. “What have you found?”

  This Ned was young, Cristina realized, an adolescent like her cousins, just seventeen or so. He might be an apprentice gauger or a young kinsman joining the raid. Even so, he was helping to ransack her house. She glared at him. He watched her in silence, head tilted.

  “Whatever you find is ours,” the other man said. “Hey! Is that a gleam of gold there?”

  Cristina’s long blond braid had caught the light. She shrank back, holding Patrick close. Ned placed a hand on the shutter and turned, blocking the other man’s view.

  “Just the lamplight shining on . . . a yellow curtain rope,” he answered.

  Muttering, the other man walked away. Cristina breathed out.

  “Girl, what are you called?” Ned asked softly.

  “Kirstie,” she said, giving her familiar name.

  “Is that your wee brother, Kirstie?”

  She looked up. His eyes were clear green in the lamplight. Dark curls framed a lean face beneath a battered hat. He smiled. He was bonny. She wanted to trust him, and nodded.

  “Stay there until we’re gone. You’re both safe, lass. I’ll see to it.” He closed the shutter, leaving Cristina and Patrick in darkness.

  She waited until the men left, until birdsong cut the silence, while her brother slept on her shoulder. Finally she heard footsteps and Da’s voice calling out. Her mother called, too, anxiously, and then the dog barked and loped up the stairs.

  “Here!” Cristina shouted. “I am here, and Patrick is safe with me.”

  Chapter 1

  Scotland, Stirlingshire—January 5, 1811

  All she had to do was hold up a coach.

  Just that, Cristina Heron-Shaw thought, twisting her fingers in the folds of her gown, a creamy silk embroidered with pink rosebuds. Was she mad? Wickedly so, but she had no choice. Da would have understood her decision, were he still alive.

  Her uncle, Reverend Heron-Shaw, would not approve, of course; he had disliked his brother’s free-trading lifestyle. But the vicar of Craigiston did not know that his nephew was currently locked in the town tolbooth as one Patrick Kerr, using his mother’s surname.

  Seated at the supper table, Cristina smiled and nodded at whatever her aunt, Mrs. Mary Heron-Shaw, was saying as she exchanged pleasantries with Edward Armstrong, Lord Dunallan, the newly inherited viscount and sheriff. Something about the Christmas Eve supper they were sharing; something about pie.

  Cristina smiled, mind racing. Just before supper she had overheard Dunallan speaking to his sheriff-deputy, Mr. Rutledge. What they said had nearly spun her into a panic. Mr. Rutledge often made her teeth grind; the man’s grudge with her family went back to his days as a gauger, when her father had constantly eluded him. If Rutledge knew that young Patrick Kerr was actually Johnny Shaw’s son, there would be hell to pay.

  And now she sat across from the sheriff and deputy, secretly plotting a crime.

  All evening, she had endured Mr. Rutledge’s insufferable politeness. He enjoyed her discomfiture, for he knew too much—and not enough—about her kinsmen. She wondered if he had informed Lord Dunallan yet about the shameful origins of the vicar’s niece. If not, the deputy would detail it soon enough.

  “Indeed, madam, the apple pie is delicious,” Dunallan answered the vicar’s wife. His deep voice was velvety and compelling. Cristina stole another glance at him.

  He was astonishin
gly handsome, as her Cousin Lilias had whispered earlier. True, he had a long, lean, muscled physique, well-balanced features, dark curls and hazel green eyes of such striking beauty that whenever he glanced at her, her heart set to wild beating.

  Stop that, she told herself. She had no time for the swoony behavior that younger Lilias, seated at the far end of the table, favored. Cristina had too much on her mind.

  “My niece made the pie herself,” Aunt Mary was explaining. “She is so gifted in domestic arts, and she has a kind heart. Why, she sent our cook home to family for the evening in case of bad weather tonight and finished the baking herself. And her pies are as excellent as her charitable nature. We are so proud of Cristina.”

  “As you should be.” He smiled, the corner of his mouth dimpling. Cristina wished she had not noticed that. “Such charity and skill are commendable.”

  How mortifying! She cringed at her aunt’s matchmaking attempt. Every local matron was pushing eligible girls at the man. He was titled, rich, handsome, and unmarried—a rarity in this region on the fringes of the Highlands. But she would not be shoved at him, or anyone.

  Still, she glanced again at the viscount as he spoke with her aunt. She wished that he would resume his conversation with Rutledge; she needed to hear more of his plans.

  “I do know that Highland Christmas is celebrated tomorrow, the sixth of January,” he was telling Mrs. Lindsay, the miller’s wife. “Although New Year’s—Hogmanay—is just past.”

  “Aye so. We call our later Yule the ‘Old Style,’ a holiday followed long, long ago.” Mrs. Lindsay, an elderly lady in black taffeta, smiled. “You will remember it from visiting your grandparents. I remember you as a wee lad, sir. Very bold, you were,” she said, shaking a finger.

  “Sometimes, madam.” He laughed.

  Cristina felt that rich, low chuckle melt through her. “We consider ourselves Highland in this region, just below Stirling, and we do celebrate the second Yule, which is not often done in your Lowlands, sir.” Did she sound haughty? The man unsettled her thinking.

  Green eyes met hers, lingered. He nodded, and it seemed almost intimate. “Not my Lowlands, exactly, but I enjoy living there.”

  “We are Highland and proud of it,” the miller’s wife said. “In the south, the Lowlanders celebrate Christmas with little tradition and less merriment, I hear. They are very dour about the day, with solemn kirk services and then the shops are opened, with a bit of greenery over the doors. It is all the merry they can summon!”

  “It is not so bad, madam. I do remember excellent Highland Christmases as a boy, when I visited my grandparents.” He smiled.

  “Very merry indeed, with parties and dances,” the lady agreed.

  Rutledge leaned over to murmur to Dunallan then, and Cristina wished she could hear it more clearly.

  “The delivery should be tonight,” Dunallan murmured in response to a question.

  Tonight! Was she mad to cross the new sheriff? She did not know what to make of him yet. She remembered the new Dunallan’s grandfather, who had also been sheriff. The old man had spoken well of her father, admiring his cleverness—and he enjoyed the smuggled spirits Johnny Shaw had brought him. His grandson seemed unlikely to forgive such unlawful activities.

  Rumor said the new viscount would not remain in the area despite his appointment. According to Aunt Mary’s friends, he would sell the estate, resign his office, and return to Edinburgh, where he had a law practice, a town house, and a fortune.

  Unwilling to admit it, Cristina had been intensely aware of him all night—naturally, since her brother was locked in the man’s tolbooth. But watching Dunallan now, she was caught by an attraction she could not explain or wholly understand, and did not want to feel.

  Luckily her inadvertent eavesdropping had inspired a solution to the very dilemma she faced. Her impulsive plan could save Patrick, if she could summon the courage to see it through.

  Earlier she had listened as Dunallan confirmed to Rutledge that certain documents would be delivered that night containing orders to transfer the prisoner to Edinburgh for trial. The government meant to make an example of him, Dunallan had explained grimly, while Rutledge had seemed pleased.

  All she need do, Cristina told herself, was disguise herself, halt the coach, wave a pistol about, demand the documents, and ride off. The resulting delay would give her time to free Patrick and get him to the Highlands, where he could hide until his innocence could be proven.

  The wild deed had precedence. Her great-great-grandmother had played highwayman to stop a coach and steal documents ordering her father’s hanging, thus saving him with the gift of time. If Lady Grisell Cochrane could do it in the seventeenth century, Cristina told herself firmly that she could carry it off now. At twenty-one, she had an independent nature, though she wondered if she had the backbone to see this mad scheme through.

  She straightened her shoulders, draped in a pale green shawl, and touched the little golden locket at her throat, for she wore Grisell’s own pendant, passed down, and felt that it lent her courage. Then she smiled, pretending to follow what her aunt was saying.

  “An excellent plan, Cristina. It would please Lord Dunallan so!” the lady said.

  “W-what would please him, Aunt Mary?” Cristina asked, startled.

  “Were you not listening again? I said you should serve him some of the jam trifle yourself, since you made it,” her aunt whispered. “He would surely appreciate it!”

  He does not look easy to please, Cristina thought. Just now he looked stern as he spoke to Rutledge. He might be a divine catch, but she did not want to attract his attention tonight.

  “That would be too forward, Aunt.” Not as forward as robbing a coach, she thought.

  “We do not follow strict rules here in the Highlands, dear, especially at the holidays. We treat guests like family. And you know every cap will be set—”

  “Hush,” Cristina said desperately. Of course she wanted a husband one day, but not now, not this man. She wanted to love deeply and enduringly, but not yet. Besides, the surly viscount would never consider a bride whose brother sat in his tolbooth and whose father had been a smuggler. Nor would he ever marry a girl who schemed to steal his documents.

  “They do say,” Aunt Mary murmured, persistent, “that he has a considerable income, a house in Edinburgh, and an estate in the Borders. He visited here often as a boy. Now that he owns the castle, perhaps he will restore it. Such a handsome old place!”

  “It is absolutely crumbling,” Cristina murmured. “It would take a fortune to fix it.”

  “But so picturesque! I wonder,” Aunt Mary whispered, “if he will take a Highland bride now that he is a Highland laird.”

  “More likely, he will open the castle only for shooting parties,” Cristina said sourly.

  She did not recall meeting Edward Armstrong as a boy at his grandfather’s home during her visits to Craigiston, though he did seem strangely familiar. Perhaps there was a family resemblance. What mattered far more just now was that he was the sheriff.

  She had learned of Patrick’s arrest while she was staying with friends in the Highlands and received word from a cousin who had been with her brother. Hastening to Craigiston, she discovered that Patrick had given the name Kerr to protect his family. She had not seen him yet, and had no good excuse to go to the tolbooth alone. She had also learned that old Lord Dunallan had died recently, leaving the estate to a Lowland grandson who had been quickly invested as sheriff in his grandfather’s place. Although the position was no longer hereditary, the new viscount was an Edinburgh advocate called to the Bar, and so the government had offered him the appointment.

  Now Mrs. Lindsay, the miller’s widow, was praising the pies and Cristina’s domestic abilities. Inwardly groaning, Cristina wished the evening—the whole of it—was over.

  Her uncle leaned forward from his place at the head of the table. “Sir, your grandfather spoke highly of you, and mentioned your interest in Scottish history. My nie
ce Cristina is enamored of history as well.”

  “I read it avidly, as many do,” Cristina said. “I am quite fond of Scott’s poetry as well as his scholarly work.”

  “Aye, his work is fascinating,” Dunallan agreed. “I find his epic poems excellent, particularly in their historical aspects.”

  History and Scott and dimples and dark curls, and there she was melting again when she should think only of her mission. “So you are familiar with Mr. Scott!”

  “My mother is personally acquainted with him, and he has kindly given me some advice, even though my own work is amateur,” he went on, sounding sincere. “I am working on a history of the Armstrongs, as my ancestors enjoyed some notoriety as Border reivers.”

  “I have read of the bold Lowland reivers,” Cristina said.

  “Our family tree boasts rogues, too,” the vicar said. “My great-grandmother—”

  “Uncle, Lord Dunallan would not find that very interesting,” Cristina said hastily.

  “But I do find it intriguing,” Dunallan said. “The vicar mentioned his bold ancestress earlier, when we were in his library.”

  “Their family has current rogues even more notorious,” Rutledge began.

  “Oh, but we never speak of them!” Aunt Mary said. “Do we, Mr. Heron-Shaw?”

  “No, indeed, my dear. Some we never mention.”

  Dunallan glanced at Cristina, his brow wrinkling. She tried to look innocent. “Do tell us about your Border rascals, sir,” she said impulsively.

  “I would be glad to do so sometime, Miss Heron-Shaw,” he answered. His gaze was arrow-keen, thoughtful. In the candlelight, his eyes were green, astute, focused on her.

  “Please,” she said, and knew she sounded desperate.

  Wrapping long fingers around his wine glass, he raised it slightly in half toast. Miss Heron-Shaw, those eyes and lifted hand seemed to say, I know your secrets, and we will talk, you and I—alone.

  She blinked. Guilt and anxiety fueled her imagination. Surely the man thought only of apple pie and clotted cream, and surely cringed at yet another young woman pushed blatantly toward him. He could not guess her secrets, unless Mr. Rutledge had already ruined her in his regard. Tonight, that would not be far wrong.