Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  Richard had given that to her, Abby thought with wonder. He had returned her faith in herself. He had taken the role that her friends always had, Abby realized. For years it had been their presence – their prodding – that had emboldened her and given her strength.

  Now it was Richard. Richard who made her feel powerful. Richard who gave her daring.

  Abby felt she could stand tall and boldly face – figuratively and literally – anything… or anyone with the confidence she’d known in years past.

  In return, she wanted to give Richard something back. He was plagued by uncertainty and the fear that he wouldn’t be able to save his brother and the others in his unit. It was easy to see that the worry was consuming him and that he wouldn’t be able to move on with his life until he found them. She wanted to give him what he’d come to London for, and her father might be the last person in London who hadn’t yet given Richard his flat denial. To give him what he needed, Abby was prepared to beg… on her knees if necessary.

  And if her father still refused… Abby took a deep breath, shaking away the thought. He would not. Hopefully, he would do the right thing.

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to play her final bargaining chip.

  “What is it?” Haddington grumbled without looking up.

  “I’ve come to ask for a favor, Father.”

  “Have you now?”

  Her father sounded slightly bored at the request but Abby knew she must have piqued his interest, at least marginally. In her entire life, she couldn’t remember asking him for anything, with the single exception of asking him not to wed Oona so soon after her mother’s death. He had ignored her then, and Abby could only hope that he wouldn’t ignore her now.

  “You might be aware that these last several weeks the Earl of Glenrothes and Captain MacKintosh have been petitioning for assistance to initiate a rescue mission to retrieve Vincent MacKintosh and Jason MacKenzie from Egypt.”

  “It so happens that I have heard something of the sort.”

  “From Prince George, I would wager,” Abby dared to guess.

  “Aye, what of it?”

  Abby took a deep breath. It struck her as wrong to ask anything of her father. But for Richard… for Richard she was willing to do anything. “I know you’ve long been bosom friends with His Highness. I recall him being a guest at Glen Sannox more than a few times when I was a child.” Haddington didn’t offer any comment on that but only waved his hand impatiently for her to continue. “I want you to have him send a regiment – no, the whole bloody army – into Egypt to find Jason and Vin.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Why should you need a greater reason at all beyond the fact that they are being held prisoner?” Abby asked incredulously at his blatant disinterest. This was not going well. “You’ve known them their entire lives.”

  “Wastrels all,” Haddington grumbled. “No one of the entire generation has been worth spit.”

  Abby stood agape at his harsh words, at a loss for an adequate rebuttal. “They are the sons of men you have claimed to be your dearest friends!”

  “Good riddance to them,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Too bad Jack wasn’t with them.”

  “Father!” Abby stared at her sire, horrified. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say, but when she spoke, the words were probably the most ill considered of her life. “My God, what a bitter old bastard you’ve become!”

  “Ye’ll nae be talking that way to me, daughter!”

  No, she shouldn’t be but Abby was beyond caring. “It seems someone must. How can you say such a thing? About the sons of the two men you most admired? About your own son?”

  “My son betrayed me.”

  Again, there was that rush of boldness, that feeling that she couldn’t hold her tongue. The rightness that she shouldn’t even try. So much had gone awry in her life in recent years, most of it because of the choices her father had made. No one had ever told him that he was wrong, no one had ever dared. But Abby was feeling very daring just then. “You’re right, Father, your son did betray you, just not the one you thought!”

  Haddington’s eyes burned into hers, as if he was astounded that she would dare speak of the scandal herself. “That’s right, Father! I’m going to say it aloud, that thing we dare not speak of, but it’s about time someone did. It wasn’t Jack but your precious Cullen who shagged your whore of a wife. Everyone knew it. Everyone! Yourself included. You disowned your honorable son in favor of a coward who still can’t admit the truth of it to you.”

  “Hold yer tongue, lass! I willnae believe it!”

  “Then you’re a bloody fool,” she said bluntly, refusing to cringe before the fire in her father’s eyes. There was no stopping herself now. It was no longer just Richard she was fighting for, it was for Jack as well. It was for herself, her constant struggle with Oona. It was everything Oona had done to them all. “I think you knew all along. It was bad enough that your young, bonny wife betrayed you, but to discover that it was with your favorite son was just too much to accept. So Sandy has those gold eyes, it was easy to blame Jack instead of placing the blame where it belonged. Those eyes could have come from either one of Margaret Montgomery’s sons and you know it! But, no, you just saw those eyes and assumed it was Jack. You never gave him a chance, even though he denied it from the start. You just banished him from your home and that was that. Then it was too late and you have too much pride to apologize. You’ve taken that anger and you’ve taken that hate and let it fester in you for the past ten years. You’ve rained that bitterness down on everyone except the two people who deserve it most, and them you cater to as if you have no will at all.”

  “I’ll take no more of this from ye, lass!” Angus roared.

  “Yes, you will!” Abby yelled back, surprising them both. “This entire situation is ridiculous! You hate and hate and care about nothing but money and more money! You denied a son without accepting the truth. You’ve denied me my brother. You are willing to sacrifice the girls and me without an ounce of remorse. You are a hateful old man, but this time, I’m not going to stand meekly by and let it continue. You can send us all off without a thought, but the time has come to do the right thing for a change and you’re going to start with this! For Jamie MacKenzie and for Alex MacKintosh and any love you ever held for them, you will demand Cambridge search for their sons.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I will never marry Aylesbury and you’ll never see a penny of my inheritance,” Abby said flatly throwing down the only bargaining chip she had hoped to withhold. It was the one thing she had to use against him, and in using it, she would not only save Richard but lose him as well. Her heart was already aching but she managed a satisfied smirk for her father anyway. “Ahh, there’s something you care about, isn’t there? Well, if you want it, you’d better be prepared to pay for it.”

  “Ye think ye can blackmail me, daughter?” he growled crossing his arms over his chest.

  Abby crossed hers as well. “Yes, Papa. I do. It’s recently been brought to my attention that I am above the age of consent. Who I marry is my choice and mine alone.”

  There was a calculating look on her father’s face that was mixed with some grudging respect. “I ask George this favor and ye’ll wed Aylesbury without argument?”

  Abby swallowed deeply, thinking of Richard, thinking of a love that had lived within her for a decade and would last for all the decades she had remaining. She would do anything to make him happy, to relieve the burden that ate at him. She would lay down her life for him. Marrying another to save the lives of those he loved would be a small sacrifice on her part.

  “You get His Highness to agree unconditionally,” Abby amended, “and I will ask Aylesbury myself.”

  Chapter 25

  Hope

  Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

  Whispering ‘it will be happier’…

  - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  A garden party at
the home of Arthur Balfour

  Secretary to Scotland

  16 Portman Square, London

  Two days later

  “Then there’s no chance that you might intervene with your uncle on our behalf to listen to our plea?” Richard asked his host, with a sinking feeling. It was just another lead, another chance at hope being cast to the wayside.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Balfour responded with true regret. “I’ve half of Parliament still accusing me of using my connections to my uncle to gain my present position. Further use of the relationship would be political suicide.”

  And there was no chance that any of London’s politicians would run that sort of risk, Richard thought with a mental snort. It was a lesson that he had learned quickly but was not becoming easier to swallow. With so many moments similar to this marking the last several days, Richard might have thought that he would become inured to the rejection but each time it clawed at his heart.

  In truth, Balfour’s position was more fragile than most. As the nephew to Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury and the current Prime Minister, any appointment in the government would have been met with speculation. Parliament had gone beyond mere hearsay to straight accusation. The phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’ was already being bandied about as a humorous euphemism for having a windfall awarded to one without due diligence.

  “Thank you for your time, Secretary.” Richard held out his hand politely but could not keep the disappointment from his voice.

  “I truly am sorry, Captain,” Balfour repeated, before adding, “You must know that you are unlikely to find the support you need, Captain. Perhaps it might be best if you accept the things you cannot change.”

  Richard felt his chest seize in rebellion at the man’s words. There was no chance of that. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could dissuade him. “On the contrary, sir, I rather think in this case, I am more inclined to change the thing that I cannot accept. And I cannot accept that there is nothing to be done for my comrades.”

  Balfour nodded slowly. “Well said, Captain, well said. Good luck to you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Turning away, Richard squinted up that the blue sky. Again it seemed that the fine weather of the spring day, the sunny skies – that had incredibly lingered for over a week – and the fragrant breezes, were somehow mocking his misery. For six months as a prisoner of the rebels, the only time he had seen the sun was when the band relocated, in its nomadic way, to another camp. Otherwise, it had been dark, arid caves and the smell of camel dung. It was wrong that he should have so much, when the others had so little. To have his freedom, when his friends had only despair.

  Never had he felt such guilt… or perhaps he had.

  There were moments when the worry and the pain disappeared, moments when everything seemed right with the world. Those moments he was with Abby – or, more precisely, after he was with Abby – left him more guilt than any others. She was his salvation and his destruction, only because he knew he could not hold on to that inner peace and did not deserve to until his mission was complete.

  As if his misery needed to be compounded, Alice Balfour, Secretary Balfour’s sister and hostess, approached Richard across the lawns with no one less than Abby’s stepmother on her arm.

  Even as he inwardly berated himself for doing so, Richard glanced around looking for Abby, wondering if she had accompanied her stepmother here. The past two days without her had seemed never ending in their continual, soul crushing disappointment. He longed to see her once again, to hear her tender encouragement… to feel her soft kiss. His desire for her in so many ways was astounding.

  However, he had no desire to see her stepmother.

  “Ahh, Captain MacKintosh!”

  Cringing, Richard put on a polite but chilling smile as the pair curtsied before him and offered their hands. Though his hostess met his gaze politely, Oona swept a glance up Richard’s length, her gaze lingering at the lower cut of his coat as if assessing the potential hidden there. Richard glared steadily back. Her assessment of his person left him uncomfortable and longing to block her appraisal of his finer attributes with his hat. Such a look was the outside of enough when added to the horrible treatment Abby had had at her hands.

  Miss Balfour carried on as if she did not notice either look. “Lady Haddington was just telling me that she could hardly stand the sight of one of my guests standing alone, Captain MacKintosh, and I must agree! As Lady Haddington has no gentleman present to escort her down to the croquet field, I must ask if you would be so kind as to do so? That way, neither of you will stand alone.”

  “It would be my pleasure, of course,” he answered through gritted teeth and offered an elbow to the countess, thinking it was anything but a pleasure to be doing so. Where a true lady might merely lay a delicate hand lightly on his arm, Oona was bolder, wrapping her hands around his bicep and hugging it tightly against her breasts. It was all he could do not to shake her off.

  “Perhaps something more intimate would be preferable, Captain MacKintosh,” Oona murmured in a low, suggestive voice as their hostess moved away. “The maze perhaps? Or the library?”

  Richard heard the seductive undertone and raised his brows in surprise. Surely, she wasn’t…? Aye, she was, he decided studying her fluttering lashes and feeling the press of her breast against him once more. Oona was offering him much more than a stroll. His eyes narrowed upon her with consideration before finally he answered with a shrug. “Why not? I think a private moment with you would be just the thing, Lady Haddington.”

  “Shall we go?”

  “Lead the way.”

  As they walked, Oona waited for the compliments that usually came her way once she was alone – or nearly alone – with a gentleman. It wasn’t that she was exceptionally vain, Oona had long thought in her own defense, it was simply how things were. How they had always been since she’d had her own moment as a diamond of the Edinburgh Season. All the men had loved her, all the men had wanted to make love to her. It was intoxicating to have such power over the male of the species.

  It was even more important to have it now that she was past her thirtieth year, Oona acknowledged with a frown that she quickly smoothed away. It simply wouldn’t do to allow for any chance of a wrinkle to mar her perfect complexion!

  She glanced up at Richard MacKintosh with some expectation, only to find to her surprise that he wasn’t looking at her at all!

  Glancing down to make sure her bosoms were properly exposed, Oona took a deep breath to thrust them even higher against her bodice, hoping for a better result.

  She had heard of the prowess of the MacKintosh men. They were all young men, but virile by all accounts. Though the captain and one of the others had been out of the country for the past year, it was said that the eldest – the earl – was gaining a sterling reputation for his expertise in the bedchamber in Edinburgh. His estranged countess had cast certain doubts on his skill to gain sympathy for carrying on her own affairs, but Glenrothes was discounting every rumor laid against him and doing so with a fervor that left a number of ladies delighted.

  Oona hadn’t been able to entice that MacKintosh into her bed as yet, but perhaps this one might be different. He had caught her attention at Catharine’s betrothal ball several nights past, looking incredibly dashing in his regimentals. All the ladies knew that an officer was always as randy as a goat and well… Oona was randy as well. What with Cullen back at Glen Sannox House and her usual beaux in Edinburgh, she had no one here in London yet to keep her in good company. God only knew that she couldn’t expect her husband to perform, even if she wanted him to!

  Glancing up at the handsome captain once again, Oona was surprised and a little confused that his attention still was not focused on her amply displayed assets. Instead, he stared off in the distance. His attention firmly ensnared elsewhere.

  Following his gaze, Oona’s scrutiny sifted through the possibilities, trying to determine who or what had caught his eye. The Graf
ton lass? Too scrawny for any serious notice. That Primrose heiress? Oona considered the plump debutante before shaking her head. Then another woman caught her eye.

  Certainly not!

  Looking back and forth between the captain and the young woman, Oona’s eyes narrowed and she couldn’t hold back the snarl that escaped her lips. It was none other than her stepdaughter, Abygail, who held Captain MacKintosh’s attentions. How was that even possible, she wondered. Of course, they had known each other since childhood, but that was not a look of friendship that sculpted the captain’s ruggedly enthralled expression. No, it was the look Oona had expected to be set upon her.

  Lust. Longing.

  It was simply unacceptable.

  It was hard enough to accept rejection of any sort or to lose a lover in favor of another. But if she failed to bed Captain MacKintosh, it wouldn’t because of that little twit!

  Stepdaughter! Bah! If she had known what was waiting for her as Angus Merrill’s wife, Oona might have given up her hopes of a title to avoid not only her husband, but that daughter of his, as well. Haddington actually claimed – after the wedding, of course – that he had wed her only to gain a mother for his three young daughters! (Though Oona knew it was because he wanted what was between her legs and she refused to give it up to him without marriage.)

  Well, he’d certainly chosen the wrong woman for that job! Though if all three had been like Sara and Catharine, there wouldn’t have been a problem. They were sweet, pretty twins of just seven years when she’d married their father. From the very first, the pair had been in awe of Oona’s beauty and sought only to emulate her in every way. It had been a bit like having an entourage to cater to her vanity. They adored her and in return Oona dressed them up and taught them the ways of Society.

  Abygail, however, had not only been hateful but rebellious and Oona had been happy to ignore her until one afternoon when she had caught sight of Abygail in a mirror as she walked by. That day Oona saw something she’d never seen even when looking straight into the lass’ bitter, aqua eyes. Underneath her often rumpled and dirtied exterior, Abygail was a beauty, pale and angelic.