Mia Marlowe

by Plaid Tidings

  There were Beatons and Frasers and Bruces galore. But the Scot who surprised him most was Darren MacMartin, representing the Cameron clan. Now styling himself simply as “Sir Darren,” he had no reason to remain in Scotland, unless he was up to no good.

  Alexander hadn’t thought much of the fellow when he bested him on the Agatha May. A man who could hold neither his cards nor his temper when he lost was not to be trusted.

  Alex really didn’t like the way the man was holding Lucinda either. The fact that MacMartin was her dance partner and the close holds were required made no difference to the clenching in Alexander’s gut.

  Her face was flushed that becoming shade of peach again. Her green eyes sparked with such inner fire he couldn’t blame Darren MacMartin for being drawn to her. She was as light on her feet as a faery dancing on a dew-spangled flower stem.

  Alex gave himself an inward shake. He wasn’t usually so fanciful. Faeries and flower stems. Clarindon would have a field day with that.

  The occasional flip of Lucinda’s skirt revealed slender calves.

  Alex forgot about faeries and wondered absently what her skin would taste like if he were to trace a circle around her delicate anklebone with his tongue. He closed his eyes and attempted without success to drive that idea from his mind. He tried actually listening to Hester to distract himself, but since she was waxing poetic about the efficacy of a new bunion cure, he gave that up in a heartbeat.

  The couples on the dance floor moved in intricate patterns. When the dance called for the couples to move into yet another close hold, Alexander’s gut tightened again.

  Just because he didn’t want Sir Darren to have Lucinda, didn’t mean he wanted her.

  Lord Rankin strolled by. “That’s your new fiancée among the dancers, isn’t it, Mallory?” Rankin said with the hint of a malicious giggle in his tone. “You see now why I insisted on adding a bit of local color to our gathering.”

  “Local color, is it?” Hester stopped Rankin cold with a clawed hand to his forearm. “I’ll have ye know the reel is a Highland tradition, no’ just local color.” Her face twisted into a horrifying grimace. “I’ll no’ have ye denigrating the reel so. This dance was old when me grandmother was a girl and—”

  “Lord Rankin, allow me to offer you my seat so Mrs. MacGibbon can further illuminate you on Highland customs.”

  Alex stood and held the chair for the man in a move that made it impossible for him to refuse. Rankin shot him an evil glare as he settled his bulk onto the sturdy seat. Alex nodded to Aunt Hester and excused himself with a wider smile than the old harridan deserved.

  “I assure you, madam, I meant no disrespect. No indeed,” Rankin sputtered as Alex beat a hasty retreat. “Perfectly delightful country dance, what? When His Majesty visits next August, I’m sure he’ll be charmed by it.”

  Alex prowled the perimeter of the ballroom, keeping Lucinda in sight. At one point he tripped over a long train that one of the ladies had draped artfully before her. He righted himself before he ended up in her lap, but it was a near thing.

  Alexander swallowed back a curse. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t normally so clumsy.

  He’d been forced to apologize more in these last few days he’d been in Scotland than he had in the previous ten years.

  “Outstanding, Mallory,” he chided himself as he moved on more cautiously. “You’re making a buffoon of yourself over a girl you don’t even want.”

  Then the music stopped with a final wheeze of the pipes and Lucinda fell into Sir Darren’s arms with a laugh. A red haze settled over Alex’s vision and he started toward them. Before he reached the couple, the music began again in a slower tempo and Clarindon claimed Lucinda’s hand for the Scottish version of a minuet.

  Sir Darren withdrew from the ballroom floor and cast a sheepish grin at Alexander. With Lucinda safe in Clarindon’s hands, Alex decided to have a few words with MacMartin.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t return to London, Sir Darren,” Alexander said. “Not much for you here now, is there?”

  “Your new station as Lord Bonniebroch has made you look down on we lesser mortals, I see,” the Scot said, his brogue less pronounced than in most of the other Gaelic voices around them. “Let me stand you to a cup of the execrable punch they’re serving here and you can tell me how you’re finding your new holding.”

  Sir Darren was far too cheerful for a man who’d lost a barony. Still, Alex couldn’t think of a reason not to drink with the man he’d bested so thoroughly. It would be churlish to refuse.

  “In truth, I haven’t found Bonniebroch at all yet,” Alex said. “You might have warned me when I won the estate that a betrothal came along with the barony.”

  Sir Darren laughed. “Consider your bride an added gift. I’m not ready to face the parson’s mousetrap myself.” His pale-eyed gaze followed Lucinda around the room for a moment. “Though if I’d known the MacOwen lass was such a comely bit of muslin, I might have played my cards differently.”

  Alex cut a sharp glance at the fellow. He was almost suggesting that he’d lost Bonniebroch on purpose. “I intend to leave Dalkeith to inspect Bonniebroch after the first of the year.”

  “Not my place to say so, but I wouldn’t wait that long if I were you.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  Sir Darren pulled a silver flask from inside his waistcoat and sweetened his punch with a generous dollop of amber liquor. He offered the flask to Alexander and the strong scent of spirits wafted toward him, but Alex declined the whisky with a shake of his head. If MacMartin had lost Bonniebroch on purpose, it wouldn’t do to lower his guard around the man until Alex figured out his game.

  “I suggest you ask Farquhar why you shouldn’t wait,” Sir Darren said. “Of course, you’ll have to actually go to Bonniebroch to see him.”

  “No, I won’t. The old fellow turned up here in my chamber this evening.”

  MacMartin choked on his punch and Alex had to thump him soundly on the back to get him to stop coughing.

  “Callum Farquhar was here? The steward of Bonniebroch. He was here and you saw him? In Dalkeith?”

  “Yes.” Why was that such an astounding thing?

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  “That’s how he introduced himself.” Alex slanted a dubious gaze at the man. “My eyes have never given me cause to doubt them before.”

  “That can change, believe me.”

  The bagpipes weren’t playing for this dance, so Alex was able to catch MacMartin’s muttered reply. Yes, indeed. The man knew a great deal more than he was saying. Alex wished for a few minutes locked in a room with the fellow. He was adept at dragging information from the unwilling.

  Sir Darren gave himself a small shake and then fixed Alex with a pointed glare. “You know, you look a good bit less rested than you were when you beat me in that poque game. A bit drawn and tetchy. Sort of like I was at the time. Tell me, milord, how’ve you been sleeping since you became Lord Bonniebroch? Any disturbing dreams?”

  This time it was Alex who choked on his punch. Why did everyone in Scotland seem to want to know about his dreams?

  “So,” MacMartin said with a satisfied smile that was purely feline. “You have met her.”

  “Met who?”

  “The weeping woman, of course,” MacMartin said cryptically. Then he set his cup down on the sideboard and started to head back to the dance floor.

  Alex decided not to wait for a locked room. He grasped MacMartin’s lapel and swung him around, pressing the man’s spine to the walnut-paneled wall and holding him up so that his toes barely touched the ground. “What do you know about this weeping woman?”

  “Not a damned thing.” Sir Darren grinned wickedly. “But I do know it’s far better that she plagues your nights instead of mine. For the rest, you’ll need to ask Farquhar.”

  Alex released him since the music stopped and the attention of the party was no longer riveted on the dance floor.

  MacMartin
adjusted his jacket and smoothed down his waistcoat. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I believe the next number is a waltz. I intend to dance it with the lass who got away.”

  “Gentlemen are blessedly predictable creatures. A little competition brings out the best in them . . . and the worst. The wise young lady rouses this competitive spirit in small, manageable doses.”

  From The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide

  to Eligible Gentlemen

  Chapter Nine

  “Capital party, what?” Clarindon said as he joined Alexander by the punch bowl. “I say, that Lucinda of yours is quite the dancer.”

  Alex crossed his arms over his chest and forced himself to look away from his supposed fiancée and her current dance partner. “She’s not my Lucinda.”

  “No? Well, that may be true given the way MacMartin is waltzing with her. Who knows? He may solve all your romantic entanglement problems by whisking her away to . . . hmmm.” Clarindon swiped his perspiring brow with a clean, white handkerchief and then stowed it back in his waistcoat pocket. “Desperate couples back in England hie themselves to Scotland to marry in haste. Where do you suppose Scots flee to?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. That’s not why we’re here.” Work. That’s what he needed. Surely focusing on his mission would settle this blasted fire in his gut each time he caught Lucinda’s eyes sparkling while she danced with someone else. “You’ve been at Dalkeith Palace longer than I. What have you learned about the locals?”

  “The nobles have no use for the rebellion or any of the Radicals’ causes. Interrupts trade, they say.” Sir Bertram helped himself to a spot of punch. “Weak stuff, what?” he said with a grimace, but still managed to down the whole cup in one long swallow. “No, I think we may safely conclude that the landed Scottish nobility have calculated which side of the argument best suits their interests. They’ve decided to back the Crown.”

  “Even against their own countrymen?”

  Clarindon nodded. “So it seems. No sense of national unity at all in Scotland, which is a boon for our side. Comes from all that clan nonsense, I suppose. Been their downfall since the time of Robert the Bruce. They’re more loyal to their own tight little circle than to the country as a whole. But they do know where their coin is minted. Frightfully practical people, the Scots.”

  “Then that leaves the lesser nobility and the gentry who might give aid to the Radicals,” Alex said.

  “Oh, well done,” Clarindon said with a sniff. “Now that you’re a landed baron, someone who’s earned a knighthood is merely a lesser noble.”

  “I don’t mean you,” Alex said. Clarindon had been knighted after he took a bullet meant for the king’s cousin in France three years ago. It was his shining moment and Clarindon would happily untie his cravat and undo the top three buttons on his shirt for anyone who wished to see the scar near his clavicle. “Besides, let’s not get carried away by the idea of me being ‘landed.’ I’m still fully expecting to find myself laird of a place with a roof that’s open to the night sky and a flock of mangy sheep that are expected to fatten on rocks.”

  “It’d serve you right.” Clarindon pulled a face at him.

  “What have you learned about Sir Darren MacMartin?”

  “Oh, very well. I suppose I’d ought to prove I haven’t been wasting my time drinking and wenching. Not all my time at any rate . . .” Clarindon pulled a palm-sized journal from his waistcoat pocket and flipped a few pages. “Been compiling a dossier on all the Scottish chieftains. I’ll do more research of course, but here’s what I’ve gleaned from MacMartin himself. He’s very proud of his family motto—‘Hinc Fortior et Clarior,’ which means—”

  “‘Hence stronger and more illustrious,’” Alex finished for him. “Thank you, Clarindon. I too studied Latin.”

  “Yes, yes, I was there at Eton with you, but I didn’t think you were attending much at the time. As I recall, you were too busy devising ways of sneaking out to visit the girls in the nearby village after the headmaster and his minions were abed.”

  “And as I recall, you never turned down a chance to come with me. Now go on.” Alexander ground his teeth as Lucinda and Sir Darren turned and dipped past them. “Why was MacMartin knighted?”

  “That’s the odd thing. He didn’t bring it up. Most do, you know. When I tried to broach the subject, he turned the conversation in another direction.”

  Clarindon shifted to allow Lord Rankin to join them. “Good evening, milord. I was just saying to Mallory how well this first meeting with the local nobility has turned out. No doubt the credit redounds to you.”

  Lord Rankin puffed up under Clarindon’s praise like a toad during its courtship season. Alexander’s friend had a knack for flattery that bordered on genius. He’d often tried to teach Alex how to do it, but Alex proved a less than apt pupil.

  “Yes, the evening does seem to be going well,” Rankin said. “Of course, that blighter Lord Arbuthnott was trouncing me in a chess game earlier, but after this little break for dancing, I’ll figure a way out of the trap he’s set for me.”

  “Nonsense. I’m sure you’re merely allowing Arbuthnott to win,” Sir Bertram said.

  Alex thought that was doing it a bit too brown, even for Clarindon.

  Rankin harrumphed a couple of times. “Don’t breathe a word of it and he’ll never know I threw the game. After all, we are here to establish a foundation of goodwill for the king. It’s just as I explained to Lord Liverpool,” Rankin said, reinforcing the fact that he had the prime minister’s ear. “If we are seen to honor and even embrace the Scottish traditions, their politics can’t help but fall more in line with our own. I count on you two to jump in with both feet when it comes to ingratiating ourselves to the Scots.” Then he skewered Alex with a glare. “But if you ever leave me with Hester MacGibbon again, you’ll be on the first boat back to London, whether you’re a Scottish laird or no.”

  Is that a promise? danced on Alex’s tongue, but the waltz ended and he began to excuse himself so he could collect Lucinda from Sir Darren.

  “No, stay a moment, Mallory. I want your opinion on something,” Lord Rankin said. His tone was genial, but it was an order nonetheless. “I’ve arranged a special exhibition of the very thing I was talking about—a celebration of Scottish culture. Of course, I have it on good authority that it’s a display of noble savagery, but the king is a devotee of Rousseau. If this demonstration goes well, we’ll have them perform for His Majesty when he comes.”

  The bagpipes started up with a mighty wheeze that blossomed into a bone-chilling squeal. The hair on the back of Alexander’s neck lifted. There was something both otherworldly and strangely familiar about that sound, as if it belonged to the realm of dreams. Or nightmares.

  Or another lifetime . . .

  Three kilted warriors entered the hall, two of them bearing a pair of long claymores each. The third appeared to be unarmed save for a wicked looking dirk at his waist.

  “I thought we outlawed weapons in the palace,” Alex said.

  “We did,” Rankin agreed. “But these blades are ceremonial.”

  “The edges look well-honed enough to ceremonially kill someone,” Alex said dryly.

  “Don’t be such a pessimist, Mallory. Trust is the oil which greases the wheels of diplomacy.”

  Clearly, Rankin had lost sight of their directive from Lord Liverpool. They were supposed to search out and bring to justice any remaining Radicals, not join hands with the Scots and sing around a Maypole.

  Alexander narrowed his gaze at the fellow who bore the dirk. His reddish-brown beard had been trimmed and his hair was clubbed back into a neat queue, but Alex still recognized him.

  It was Lucinda’s brother, Dougal.

  Lucinda hissed a breath over her teeth. It was one thing for Dougal to tend the horses in the stable or prune the roses in the garden at Dalkeith. No one marked the humble servants who did those jobs. But it was quite another for him to stride into a ballroom wearing a belted pl
aid that had until very recently been illegal while gripping the hilt of a wicked-looking dirk.

  He was bound to be recognized as one of the leaders of the Radicals, if not by the English, surely by the Scots. She’d told Brodie earlier that no one would turn him in.

  Now she wasn’t so sure.

  As they waltzed, Sir Darren had told her everyone wished to make themselves agreeable to the English. What better way to do it than to turn in a wanted man who happened to be a Scot?

  Dougal stood off to one side while the other two men laid out their claymores like prone crosses on the polished hardwood floor. Then they began leaping and dancing from one quadrant of the crossed swords to the next, their feet flying in perfect tandem, their arms raised in triumph.

  “Ah, the sword dance,” Sir Darren said at her side. “I haven’t seen this performed since I was a boy.”

  Lucinda had never seen it. The masculine beauty and grace of the dance and the terror of naked blades so close to unprotected ankles fairly snatched her breath away. The agility, the strength, the stamina it took to dance with the blades and take no hurt boggled her mind.

  As soon as the sword dancers made their furious finish, Dougal loosed a full-throated war cry and leapt into the center of the ballroom, brandishing his dirk.

  “I’ve heard of the dirk dance.” Sir Darren leaned toward Lucinda to whisper in her ear. “It’s supposed to be the most primal thing a man can do short of actually killing somebody.”

  Lucinda feared she might be sick. All of Dougal’s movements were stylized feats of arms, slashing and turning, leaping and thrusting. It was as if he fought an invisible foe in time with the wild squeal of pipes.

  Dougal sparred with the air, hacking and plunging. After a particularly harrowing series of turns, feints, and parries, the audience burst into spontaneous applause, even though the dance wasn’t finished yet.