by Karen Ranney
Ross didn’t employ a secretary simply because he enjoyed the minutia of his life. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Huntly, the farms, the properties he owned. Besides, a secretary would have been a distraction. He already had enough of those.
“It’s almost time, Ross.”
He glanced at the door as his mother entered the room.
Tall and slender, she was dressed for his wedding in a dark blue dress, the bell-shaped skirt so wide she could rest her arms at her hips. A gold broach adorned with pearls was at her neck, and pearls dangled from her ears.
Although of middle years, she was attractive, her black hair untouched by gray, the glint in her blue eyes hinting at a woman of a much younger age.
For the last five years, she’d occupied the building opposite the library, on the other side of the cobbled courtyard.
The Countess of Gadsden had the entire structure to herself, and she filled it with every sort of excess. She considered herself a collector. Jeweled reticules, gloves of all lengths and types of fabric, bonnets and headdresses, shoes of every fashion and country of origin—all these occupied every spare inch of space.
The last time he saw her home, he’d been overwhelmed by the clutter.
His majordomo had informed him last month that she was now acquiring kilts, arranging them on straw figures in the upstairs drawing room.
His father had settled a substantial sum of money on her during their marriage. Ross often wondered if it paid for her silence. Or if her collecting had eased any pain she might have felt about her husband’s indiscretions.
Since she didn’t draw from the Forster coffers for her acquisitions, there was nothing he could do.
He heard the rumble of wheels and glanced out the window overlooking the courtyard. Instead of the contingent from Drumvagen, it was a wagon, emblazoned with mcmahon’s emporium on the side in red and gold letters.
His mother’s face changed, her smile broadening.
“Ross—” she began, but he forestalled her.
“Brass andirons in the shape of horses, Mother? Or Egyptian headdresses?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Ross. Isn’t that the fun of it?”
He wouldn’t know, not having a penchant for buying things unseen as she did.
She looked at the wagon, then at him, then back at the wagon.
“You’ll try to be there when Lady Ellice arrives?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, her smile broadening.
Without another word, she left him. In moments, he saw her swiftly crossing the courtyard.
Twenty minutes later four carriages from Drumvagen arrived. He moved to stand in the same spot he had when Cassandra had come to Huntly.
He’d been a boy then, or as much as he’d ever been one. His hands had trembled and his stomach clenched.
Today he was no longer that boy but he still felt mildly ill at ease. His chest was oddly hollow, the sound of his heart beating too loud.
What would Ellice think of his home? Cassandra had known all about Huntly, of course. He’d later thought it was half the reason she’d married him. His family’s wealth had been a quarter. And the remainder? He’d often wondered.
At least the fourth Earl of Gadsden wasn’t standing on the steps beside him, but neither was his mother. Evidently, whatever she’d purchased had taken precedence over good manners.
Two footmen, both dressed in Huntly livery, strode to the carriage. One footman stood just beyond the door to extend his arm to help Ellice exit, the other opened the carriage door.
There, a foot. Now the hem of her dress.
She looked up then, her eyes finding him as if she knew he’d be standing there. She took the footman’s assistance, stepping down onto the cobbled courtyard.
Not once did she look away from him.
Her eyes were on him all the way across the expanse of courtyard and up the steps. She didn’t pay attention to her mother, who had also exited the carriage, or the others, who had begun to disembark as well. She did not look around her and seemed unimpressed by the magnificence of Huntly. Instead, her gaze was for him alone.
He felt his heart stutter.
“Lady Ellice,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “You’ve made the journey safely, I see.”
She wasn’t carrying a reticule and was simply dressed. Her pale blue dress was adorned with embroidered flowers, little touches of decoration that made him wonder if she did needlework, before he remembered. She’d stuck herself badly when sewing the bags during the flood.
Perhaps her mother had done the embroidery, but then, he couldn’t see the Countess of Barrett focused on such a task. She would spend her time in more ambitious pursuits, like most of the mothers of females he’d met in Edinburgh and London.
Cassandra’s mother still claimed a relationship with him, stating that he was her “dear beloved Cassandra’s sweet husband.” He had no doubt that the woman knew the entire story, and the charade she played had a mercenary cause.
Ellice clasped his hand and he wondered at the chill he could feel through her gloves.
“It was short in one way and interminable in the other,” she said, not looking away from him.
He found himself caught in the warmth of her eyes.
“Why was it long?” he asked. “Was the journey difficult?”
“My mother insisted on lecturing me about all my many duties.”
“Did she?” he asked, ignoring the rest of his guests, now milling in the courtyard. He was being rude, but was too intrigued by his bride to look away.
“I am to be docile,” she said. “And conformable. I’m to pay attention to everything you say as if you’re the wisest man on earth. I’m never to disagree with you. Or challenge any assumptions you might make, even if they’re glaringly wrong.”
The last was said with a roll of her eyes.
He smiled. “I take it you won’t be that kind of wife.”
She sighed. “I don’t see how I could,” she said. “Are you to be applauded for drawing breath just because you’re male? Is everything you say simply precious because you’re a man?”
“I don’t believe so, no. On the same front, however, are you to be treated with cotton wool because you’re a woman? Should you be protected from life itself because you’re too fragile?”
She blinked at him. “I shouldn’t think so. It’s never been my experience that women are treated that way.”
“Good,” he said, taking her hand, placing it on his arm and turning to the rest of his guests.
She studied him as if she found him more fascinating than Huntly, the first time anyone had ever done so. She didn’t exclaim in wonder over the marble steps or the gilt adorning the tower spires. She didn’t ask about the stained glass in the dome or inquire as to the architect or how long the house took to complete.
She simply watched him.
He greeted the others with the first real smile he’d felt for days.
Chapter 18
Huntly had a guest wing, an entire wing set aside for nothing but guests.
“But it’s not as if we have all that many visitors nowadays, Lady Ellice,” the maid said, curtsying once more. “The housekeeper tells stories of how there used to be balls and things here at Huntly and hundreds of people staying for a week or two.”
Her mother and the others had been whisked away to their quarters by the housekeeper, a short older woman with graying hair and a sweet smile. She didn’t glower at Ellice. Nor did she issue pronouncements in a near unintelligible Scottish accent or threaten things under her breath.
Instead, she’d introduced a bright-faced young maid with a gap-toothed smile, glorious red, curly hair, and green eyes.
“It’s a great privilege to serve you, Lady Ellice,” the girl said. “I’m Pegeen. My mother was Irish and my father a Scot. I’ve twice the Celt, my mother always says.”
She curtsied again, then opened the door to admit a series of footmen with Ell
ice’s trunks. The girl smiled at each man and thanked him softly.
“Begging your pardon, miss, but have you no maid of your own?”
She shook her head.
The girl’s eyes widened. “Now, that’s a surprise,” she said. “Here I was thinking you’d come with as many servants as the first countess.”
“Did you know the first countess?”
If it was possible to turn someone to ice with just words, she’d just accomplished it.
Pegeen stared at her, too much white showing in her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned her, Lady Ellice. No one said you didn’t know.”
“Of course I knew,” she said. “You’re speaking of Cassandra.”
The girl sagged, shoulders slumping. “Yes, Lady Ellice. Of course, no one called her that. Except for the earl, I mean.”
The girl’s face took on a rosy color.
“And here I am, talking too much. I never talk too much, miss. Not really.”
“It’s all right,” Ellice said. “You’re probably nervous. So am I.”
She looked around the sitting room, with its corbeled ceiling painted with a scene of clouds and rosy-cheeked, diaphanous clad damsels smiling down. The two settees in front of the fireplace were upholstered in a deep blue that matched the striped wallpaper of ivory and blue. Three-foot-high porcelain urns sat on either side of a gilt-etched white marble fireplace.
The mahogany tables were waxed to a sheen, the air laden with the scent of lemon oil and rose petals.
Three windows draped in blue velvet overlooked the broad lawn and beyond to the woods she’d seen from the carriage. The view alone was something out of a painting, a creation that could have been entitled: Bucolic Scene in a Fairy Tale.
The room was large enough to hold an assembly, perhaps even a ball. She doubted that she’d ever curl up in one of those settees, light the lamp on the table, and spend the evening reading.
The room was too beautiful, too large, and simply too much.
“I take it these are the countess’s rooms?”
“Yes, miss,” the girl said.
Have you anything smaller? Something more intimate? Something that doesn’t scare me to death?
What would the poor girl do if she said that? No doubt scurry off the housekeeper, afraid she’d lose her job.
Ellice kept silent, following Pegeen as she went to the side of the room, opening double doors to reveal the bedchamber.
This was even worse.
A massive four-poster easily double the size of her bed at Drumvagen stood on a dais on the opposite wall. She could run and dance and skip to the bed and it would take her a matter of minutes to get there.
Why must one room be so large?
A secretary sat along one wall, looking small and curiously out of place.
“His lordship had it moved here,” Pegeen said. “He had the armoires moved to your dressing room.”
“Dressing room?” she asked, feeling a surge of warmth about the addition of the desk.
A moment later she stood in front of another set of double doors. When Pegeen pushed them open, Ellice gaped at the contents. Four armoires sat there, two facing two, with a vanity and dressing table between them at the far end of the room. The wall was mirrored. Not simply a gilt-etched mirror but the entire wall.
Had Cassandra been so concerned about her appearance?
“Did you know the first countess?” she asked.
“Me?” Pegeen shook her head. “No, miss. She was gone before I came to Huntly. But I’ve heard stories of her every day since. She liked the color yellow, I understand. It flattered her blond hair. Her eyes were blue, but not a normal blue. Someone said they looked like the sea just after a storm, kind of blue and green mixed together.”
Her hair was brown.
Her eyes were brown.
She could just imagine the stories told about her. Oh, the second countess? Brown, she was, just like the color of earth after a storm. You know, when you’re turning clods of it beneath a plow.
What was she doing here?
She should find the stables, bid one of the coachmen take her back to Drumvagen posthaste, please. No, not there. Her mother would find her and she’d be returned to this palace where it was so obvious she didn’t belong. Even Pegeen, evidently a sweet girl, was looking at her in confusion.
She’d never use the dressing room in a thousand years. She wasn’t so enamored of her brown looks that she’d stare into the mirror, enchanted.
Pegeen suddenly dipped into a curtsy. Before she could tell the girl that such obeisance wasn’t necessary, a voice said, “I thought they might have brought you here. Forgive my rudeness. I should have been at the door to greet you but they were delivering a new shipment of tartan and I wanted to see if they’d finally gotten the red and black I wanted.”
Before she could completely turn, Ellice was enveloped in a powdery, perfumed hug.
A moment later she was released to find her assailant smiling at her.
The woman was tall and slender, dressed in a glaringly pink silk dress with panniers. To complete the look, she was wearing a powdered wig adorned with a chain of pearls.
The stranger looked as if she had stepped out of a book on Versailles.
“My dear girl, how overwhelming everything must be for you. I felt the same when I first came to Huntly all those years ago. It seems like a palace, doesn’t it?”
She nodded.
“And you’ve no idea who I am, of course,” she said, her smile broadening. “I’m Ross’s mother and soon to be yours.”
Not one word came to mind.
“I have my own home,” the countess said, pointing toward the window. “You must come and visit, after the honeymoon, of course. But I did want to greet you, however tardily.”
“Thank you.” There, proof that she could talk, after all.
The other woman laughed. “You must think I’ve lost my senses, my dear. A selection of costumes arrived today and I just had to don one. I’ve been of a mind to have a masked ball at Huntly to welcome you.”
Ellice blinked at the countess.
“Doesn’t that sound delightful?”
She pasted a smile on her face even though she couldn’t imagine a worse idea. A ball? She was going to be a hostess for a ball? She could barely dance. No, she couldn’t dance. She was clumsy. Nor did she hold any fondness for dancing. Her hands got damp and her toes turned numb.
“Now I must leave you, my dear, and dress for the wedding. Ross is all for having the ceremony as soon as possible. Is there a reason for such haste?” Her soon to be mother-in-law stared at her stomach.
“No,” she said, clasping her hands over her waist.
“Oh, well, there’s time. But not too much,” the countess added, wiggling a finger in front of Ellice.
Once again she was rendered mute.
She could only stare as the countess edged sideways out the dressing room door.
Ellice’s breath was tight, her stomach cramping, and she felt curiously dizzy.
She followed the candlelight procession of twelve pipers to a building set on a knoll overlooking the river. Evidently, when the Earls of Gadsden wed, the pipers played.
Even if the earl married an English girl?
She hadn’t asked that question and now it seemed a huge oversight.
Some of the great homes of England had a private chapel. Huntly had a cathedral, complete with buttresses, a soaring ceiling, and stained-glass windows now dark against the night. When light flooded them, they would no doubt be as magnificent as the rest of her new home.
The only thing out of place was her.
The broad oak doors were flung open and someone intoned something in Gaelic, a greeting tantamount to a welcome to the family.
Thank heavens she wasn’t required to respond. She didn’t think she could speak.
The pipers parted, their skirling music accompanying her entrance. Her family was seated to the left of the
aisle while the right was filled with what she thought were Ross’s guests. But then Pegeen smiled at her and she revised her assumption. Perhaps the crowd was made up of Huntly’s staff.
The Gadsden crest was emblazoned in blue and green on a wall hanging beside the altar—as if the Forster family took second place only to God.
According to Pegeen, the crypt was located to the right and was where the previous earls and their countesses had been laid to rest. Not for them the cold earth of Scotland. Instead, they had fitted space in the east wall, each crypt adorned with a brass plaque.
Did Cassandra’s ghost waft from its resting place to stand there watching her? Did she resent the presence of the living or did she simply recall her own wedding?
How had Cassandra died? A strange question to ask in the middle of her wedding. Even odder that she hadn’t considered it before now.
Had she died in childbirth as Virginia almost had? Or had it been an accident of some sort? Had she been killed riding, taking a hedge at breakneck speed, as reckless as Lady Pamela?
Did Ross mourn her still? Was he remembering the glorious Cassandra right at this moment?
What a pair they must have made. She, so beautiful, and he, as handsome as any man Ellice had ever seen, especially now.
He was dressed in a dark blue and black kilt topped with a black jacket. He was staring straight at her as if to summon her with his gaze.
What other choice had she but to continue walking toward the altar?
At her arrival at Huntly, she’d pretended to be Lady Pamela. Perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss to do the same now.
What would Lady Pamela do? She would smile. There, she could do that well enough. She would hold the Book of Common Prayer between hands that were dry, not damp and trembling.
She wouldn’t feel as if she were going to be sick any minute.
Ross’s eyes were silver in the candlelight. They sparkled at her as she neared him. Behind her the pipers still played.