To Wed A Wild Scot

by Bradley, Anna

  He doubted the green-eyed lady would be the last.

  Chapter Two

  Three days later

  The Sassy Lassie, Inverness, Scotland

  By the time Logan reined in his horse in front of the Sassy Lassie, the last thing on his mind was the green-eyed lady from the King’s Head Inn. What was on his mind was a hot dinner, and a tankard of Fergus’s special dark brown ale.

  The past three days had been brutal. It was hotter and drier than early summer in the Highlands should be, and Logan’s nose and throat were so coated with dust he would have sworn he’d come through a sandstorm.

  As if that weren’t enough to annoy a man, his horse had thrown a shoe several miles back. Fingal had been in a mood over it ever since, and when Fingal was in a mood he made sure Logan was aware of his displeasure. He’d been fretting and tossing his head since they left Bogbain, and Logan was ready to tear his hair out in frustration.

  He was in a foul mood, and the mass of sweaty, smelly bodies crowding the inn’s entryway didn’t improve his temper. Where the devil had all these people come from? It was well past the dinner hour. Shouldn’t these weary travelers have found their beds by now?

  He leapt down from the saddle with a sigh, led his horse to the stables, then went off in search of Fergus McLaren, the inn’s proprietor. Fergus had been a loyal friend of Logan’s father, and he’d known Logan since he was too small to see out the bow windows.

  Logan found him just outside the front door to the inn. He was scolding the ostlers for the delay in clearing the confusion of carriages and horses crowding the yard. His grizzled gray eyebrows rose when he saw Logan approaching. “That you, Logan? Good Lord, lad, ye look like ye been dragged through a knothole.”

  “Feel like it, too.”

  “Been in York again, have ye?”

  “Aye.” It was the second time he’d made the journey this year. He’d concluded his business, and he was happy enough to put England behind him.

  Fergus spat on the ground. “Bloody nuisance.”

  Logan didn’t argue the point. It had been a bloody nuisance, but it had been worth it. He’d been trying for months to persuade Alistair Campbell’s widow to take her two sons south into York. They were both strapping lads and would find work easily, but Bonnie Campbell hadn’t liked to leave the only home she’d ever known.

  Logan didn’t like it either, but neither did he like to see his clanswoman brutally evicted by a greedy landlord. Bonnie Campbell had a sister in York. She and her boys would be better off there. So, Logan had paid the necessary premium to secure an apprenticeship with a York apothecary for Angus Campbell, Bonnie’s eldest son. It was a good start for the boy, and Bonnie had promised Logan if he could arrange it, she’d relocate to York for Angus’s sake.

  “I’ve not got much use for York, myself. London, neither.” Fergus’s mouth twisted with disdain. “Nothing but Englishmen there.”

  Logan grunted his agreement. “Any letters, Fergus?”

  “Aye. I’ll fetch ’em for ye. Go on into the parlor, and Alison will bring ’em.”

  Fergus shuffled off, and Logan made his way to the inn’s private parlor. One of the serving lasses came with a glass of ale, and he drained it at once. He sent her off for another, then dropped into a chair to wait for Fergus’s daughter Alison to bring him his letters.

  His letters, and Fitz’s, too. Ever since Fitz had appeared on his doorstep, Logan had taken it upon himself to collect all the letters sent to Castle Kinross. He had reason to congratulate himself on his foresight, if not his honesty.

  He’d dreaded the task—had cringed every time he’d seen that thick, cream-colored paper, the daub of red wax. But now, for the first time in months, he waited with tolerable composure. God knew Fitz had thrown everything into a bloody mess when he arrived, but there hadn’t been a word from Surrey since the last flurry of letters several weeks ago.

  She’s given up at last…

  The serving girl appeared, slapped down a second tankard of ale in front of him, and bobbed a quick curtsy. Logan nodded his thanks and raised the tankard to his lips, but just as he was about to take a long draught, he was interrupted by a feminine drawl.

  “Well, Logan Blair. Here ye are at last, snug as ye please, as if ye haven’t been neglecting me these four weeks and more.”

  Logan lowered his glass, and a grin curved his lips at the sight of the girl leaning against the door jamb. “Hello, Alison.”

  “Hello Alison, he says.” She tossed her mane of long dark hair over her shoulder. “Is that all ye have to say to me, Logan Blair?”

  Her tone was scolding, but Logan could see the smile hovering at the corner of her lips. His own grin widened in response. “Tell me what to say, lass, and I’ll say it.”

  Alison straightened away from the door and came toward him, swaying her hips as she walked. “Say ye missed me, ye half-wit. Say yer heart broke a little more every day we were apart.”

  Logan laughed. “I say any of that and your father will run me off with a pitchfork.”

  Alison McLaren was the eldest of Fergus’s five girls, and according to Fergus she was the one most likely to send him into an early grave. Logan reckoned Fergus was probably right. The girl was far too pretty for any father’s comfort, and to make matters worse, she was an incorrigible flirt.

  “Ah well, then.” Alison dropped a small bundle of letters onto the table in front of him, then flounced her way back over to the door. “If ye’re not willing to risk a pitchfork to the ribs, then ye’re not worthy of me, Logan Blair.” She winked at him, then disappeared through the door with a final swish of her skirts.

  Logan was still grinning when he reached for the bundle of letters, but just as he was about to pluck them up his smile faded, and his hand stilled over the packet.

  There, at the top of the pile, was a letter on heavy, cream-colored paper, sealed with a neat daub of dark red wax. Across the front, the direction was written in dainty, feminine script.

  His Grace Fitzwilliam Vaughn, the Duke of Blackmore, care of the Sassy Lassie, Inverness, Scotland.

  Logan stared down at the elegant missive as if it were a coiled snake about to strike, then snatched it up, a dark cloud of foreboding descending on him as he held the corner of it pinched between his fingers.

  There was every chance it was nothing. A harmless letter with an account of her recent marriage, or a simple query as to the recipient’s health.

  Logan was not the recipient, but that didn’t stop him from breaking the wax, smoothing the paper flat against the table, and reading the dozen or so lines scrawled across the page. He read through it once, and then once again before he rose from his chair, crossed the room, and tossed it into the fireplace.

  The letter was brief, but Lady Juliana Bernard didn’t need more than a dozen lines to throw everything into chaos.

  * * * *

  “For pity’s sake, Stokes, I already said I’d be careful. He won’t even know I’m there, I promise you.”

  Lady Juliana glared up at Stokes, her arms crossed over her chest. It was times like these when she wished he’d behave less like an overprotective uncle and more like a servant.

  “How can you be sure he won’t see you?” Stokes’s nose twitched. “Or—forgive me, my lady—smell you?”

  Juliana sighed. Who would have guessed the smell of vomit could linger with such persistence? Even three days of hard riding hadn’t managed to disperse it. Other smells had been layered over it, of course, but that could hardly be said to have improved matters.

  In short, she smelled like an overflowing chamber pot.

  Still, she was inclined to be optimistic. They’d trailed their quarry all the way to Inverness without him having the slightest idea they were following him, and now they were closing in on Castle Kinross.

  It was near here. She could feel it.

/>   “I’ll stay downwind of him,” she said, bringing her attention back to Stokes.

  He grimaced. “Ten miles downwind? I don’t understand why you need to see him at all. Why can’t we just wait here until he comes out? It worked well enough at the other inns.”

  It had indeed, but she hadn’t sent dozens of letters to any of those other inns. She’d sent them to the Sassy Lassie, and now she was here, she wanted a look inside the place. Perhaps they’d used her letters to paper their walls. It would explain why Fitzwilliam hadn’t answered most of them. “Now we’re so close, I don’t like to let him out of my sight.”

  “I don’t like to let you out of my sight.”

  Naturally he didn’t, and she couldn’t really blame him. Like her father, Stokes thought ladies were best suited to dancing, shopping, and paying calls, not running about all over Scotland and darting in and out of public inns.

  Stokes wanted to protect her, but this journey had proved to her she was capable of far more than she’d ever imagined she was. She’d come nearly six hundred miles, the last third of those on horseback, chasing a man three times her size. She’d been blinded by the relentless sun, had her toe crushed under a horse’s hoof, and swallowed at least a pint of dust.

  She’d been vomited on, for pity’s sake.

  Now, against all odds, she was on the verge of finding Fitzwilliam.

  Juliana laid her hand on Stokes’s arm. “I’ve made it this far.”

  Stokes glanced down at her in surprise, but then he smiled and shook his head. “So you have, my lady.”

  After that he ceased his grumbling and went off to the stables to see to their horses, leaving her to do as she wished.

  Juliana glanced around the yard. No one was paying her the least bit of attention, so she walked over to the inn’s entryway and peered around the corner. There was no sign of their quarry, but quite a number of people were bustling about, so she ducked in among them, kept her head down, and made it to a long hallway just in time to see a serving maid carry a tankard of ale through a door on the left.

  A private parlor?

  She waited for the serving girl to return, then crept down the hallway. Fortunately, the girl had left the door open a crack. When Juliana peeked through it she saw their dark-haired prey lounging in a chair with his long legs sprawled out. An empty tankard of ale sat on the table in front of him.

  A vague feeling of disappointment washed over her. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to find, but certainly something more interesting than a man innocently refreshing himself. Still, she had no intention of letting him out of her sight. She wanted to be mounted on a fresh horse and waiting to follow him when he left the inn.

  She took another peek, and this time she noticed a half-open window behind him that faced the back of the inn. Ah, perfect! She could see him easily from there, and with very little risk of him seeing her.

  She hurried back down the hallway, through the front door, and around the side of the building to the back. As she drew closer she noticed a low murmur of voices floating through the open window. When Juliana peeked through it, she saw the man had company now.

  A dark-haired girl stood in the doorway, a flirtatious smile on her lips, and a packet of letters in her hand.

  Juliana’s breath left her lungs in a sudden whoosh. There was no reason for her to think anything was amiss—they were only letters, after all—but for some reason the sight of that packet made every muscle in her body tense.

  She rose to her tiptoes and squinted through the glass to get a better look at it, but the girl held the packet tucked against her side. She made no move to hand it over, and Juliana let out an impatient huff as the girl continued to stand there, talking and fluttering her eyelashes at the man.

  For his part, he seemed in no hurry to send her away. Juliana could hear a teasing note in his deep voice when he spoke to her, and when her gaze moved to his face she saw he was grinning.

  Juliana rolled her eyes. For pity’s sake, must they flirt now, when she was dying of curiosity to get a look at those letters? It was excessively tedious of them.

  Finally, just when Juliana was ready to leap through the window and grab the packet herself the girl stepped forward, dropped the letters onto the table, and with a final playful flick of her skirts, left the room.

  He turned his attention to the packet then, but just as he was about to take it up he paused, an odd, frozen look on his face as he stared down at it. Before Juliana could tell what that look meant, he reached for the packet, plucked one of the letters from the stack, and dropped the rest back onto the table.

  Juliana’s eyes widened.

  Cream-colored paper, red sealing wax, and across the front, her handwriting…

  It was the last letter she’d written to Fitzwilliam, right before she left Surrey for Scotland.

  Relief washed over Juliana. He hadn’t been ignoring her, then. He simply hadn’t received the letter yet. It didn’t explain why he hadn’t answered the others, but—

  But she soon had that explanation, as well.

  Juliana watched through the window as the man broke the seal, opened a letter clearly not addressed to him, and as cool as you please, read the entire thing.

  How dare he? Her mouth fell open, and she was seconds away from banging on the window when the man rose with her letter in his hand, and…

  Juliana gasped.

  Tossed it into the fire.

  Then he snatched up the rest of the letters, shoved them into his coat pocket, and left the room.

  Juliana remained outside the window for long moments, her hands clenched into fists, unable to stir a step. She could hardly believe what she’d just seen.

  He’d burned her letter! Why, the man was a thief, a scoundrel, and a blackguard! Tears of rage filled her eyes, but she blinked them away and ran back toward the inn yard. She was intent on finding Stokes at once, but when she rounded the side of the building, she was obliged to duck back out of sight again.

  The letter-thief was standing just on the other side, the inn proprietor with him.

  “A favor, if you would, Fergus,” the man murmured, so low Juliana had to strain to hear him.

  “Aye, Logan. What can I do?”

  Logan. So that was the scoundrel’s name.

  He led the older man away from the knot of people bustling about the entrance to the inn, closer to where Juliana was pressed against the side of the building.

  “A lady may come here, asking for the way to Castle Kinross. See to it she doesn’t find it.”

  An indignant hiss rose to Juliana’s lips, and she had to slap her hand over her mouth to smother it.

  “What sort of lady?” Fergus asked.

  “English, and grand, most likely. I’ve no idea what she looks like, but I guess you’ll recognize her easily enough. It’s not as if there’s dozens of aristocratic English ladies hanging about the Sassy Lassie.”

  “No, thank the Lord fer it. Those sorts are more trouble than they’re worth.” There was a pause, then the older man asked, “Problem with your duke, is there?”

  Your duke…

  He could only mean the Duke of Blackmore. Fitzwilliam was at Castle Kinross even now, and this hateful Logan was trying to keep her from seeing him!

  “Won’t be, as long as this lady doesn’t find him. She comes here, tell her you never heard of the place, and send her back the way she came.”

  Juliana peeked around the corner and saw Fergus was shading his eyes from the last rays of the sun. “England’s the best place for her, I reckon.”

  “There’s no place for her at Castle Kinross, that’s certain. You’ll tell your people to keep quiet as well, aye?”

  “Aye.” Fergus’s weathered face broke into a grin. “I warned ye not to get yourself a duke, lad. Now you got ’im, he’s bringing all sorts of other
odd ones your way. That’s the way of it, with dukes.”

  “I wouldn’t have taken him if I’d had a choice.” Logan trudged over to his horse, shoved the packet of letters in his saddle bag, and swung up into the saddle. He kicked the big gray horse into motion, but then drew him to an abrupt halt again, and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t want that English chit at Castle Kinross, Fergus. You’ll take care to do as I asked?”

  “Aye. I’ll see to it.”

  Logan nodded and rode out of the stable yard. Juliana waited until Fergus went back inside, then she ran into the yard, hoping Stokes was waiting for her there.

  He wasn’t. Juliana swept a frantic gaze over the yard. Stokes was nowhere to be seen, but the horse she’d ridden into the Sassy Lassie was hitched to a post nearby, munching contentedly on some hay while she waited her turn in the stables.

  Well, she’d have to wait a little longer.

  Juliana hurried to the horse, took up her reins, and mounted. She hesitated only long enough to cast a single hopeful glance toward the stables, but Stokes didn’t appear, and another anxious glance revealed the rapidly retreating figure of the scoundrel who’d just burned her letter.

  Stokes was going to be beside himself when he found her gone, but she’d come back for him as soon as she could. He’d likely figure out what had happened, and anyway, there was no help for it. This might be her only chance to find Castle Kinross, and she didn’t intend to lose it. If nothing else, she refused to let a vile blackguard like that Logan outsmart her.

  “Go!” She tapped her heels lightly against her horse’s flanks, and rode off in the direction he’d taken.

  Juliana had always considered herself to be a practical lady, but she didn’t allow herself to acknowledge all the reasons why it might not be wise to follow a strange man down a gloomy road, straight into the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.

  Not just any strange man either, but a scoundrel. A thief. The sort of blackguard who didn’t hesitate to rip open a letter not addressed to him, read it without so much as a by-your-leave, and without the faintest flush of guilt on his cheeks, consign it to a fiery grave.