Dear God, the child sounded fascinated.
“Down. Now.” That tone of voice had worked on Tye’s younger brother until Gordie had been almost twelve. The same tone had ever been a source of amusement to his younger sisters. The branches moved, and Rowan tensed again, haunches bunching as if he’d bolt.
A lithe little shape plummeted at least eight feet to the ground and landed with a loud “Ouch!” provoking Rowan to rear in earnest.
***
From the ground, the horse looked enormous, and the man astride like a giant. Fee caught an impression of darkness—dark horse, dark riding clothes, and a dark scowl as the man tried to control his horse.
“That is quite enough out of you.” The man’s voice was so stern, Fee suspected the horse understood the words, for two large iron-shod hooves came to a standstill not a foot from her head.
“Child, you will get up slowly and move away from the horse. I cannot guarantee your safety otherwise.”
Still stern—maybe this fellow was always stern, in which case he was to be pitied. Fee sat up and tried to creep back on her hands, backside, and feet, but pain shot through her left ankle and up her calf before she’d shifted half her weight.
“I hurt myself.”
The horse backed a good ten feet away, though Fee couldn’t see how the rider had asked it to do so.
“Where are you hurt?”
“My foot. I think I landed on it wrong. It’s because I’m wearing shoes.”
“Shoes do not cause injury.” He swung off the horse and shook a gloved finger at the animal. “You stand, or you’ll be stewed up for the poor of the parish.”
“Are you always so mean, mister?”
He loomed above her, hands on his hips, and Fee’s Aunt Hester would have said he looked like The Wrath of God. His nose was a Wrath-of-God sort of nose, nothing sweet or humble about it, and his eyes were Wrath-of-God eyes, all dark and glaring.
He was as tall as the Wrath of God, too, maybe even taller than Fee’s uncles, who, if not exactly the Wrath of God, could sometimes be the Wrath of Deeside and greater Aberdeenshire.
As could her aunt Hester, which was a sobering thought.
“You think I’m mean, young lady?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must answer in the affirmative.”
She frowned up at him. From his accent, he was at least a bloody Lowlander, or possibly a damned Sassenach, but even making those very significant allowances, he still talked funny.
“What is a firmative?”
“Yes, I am mean. Can you walk?”
He extended a hand down to her, a very large hand in a black riding glove. Fee had seen some pictures in a book once, of a lot of cupids without nappies bouncing around with harps, and a hand very like that one, sticking out of the clouds, except the hand in the picture was not swathed in black leather.
“Child, I do not have all day to impersonate the Good Samaritan.”
“The Good Samaritan was nice. He went to heaven.”
“While it is my sorry fate to be ruralizing in Scotland.” He hauled Fee to her feet by virtue of lifting her up under the arms. He did this without effort, as if he hoisted five stone of little girl from the roadside for regular amusement.
“Do you ever smile?”
“When in the presence of silent, well-behaved, properly scrubbed children, I sometimes consider the notion. Can you put weight on that foot?”
“It hurts. I think it hurts because my shoe is getting too tight.”
He muttered something under his breath, which might have had some bad words mixed in with more of his pernickety accent, then lifted Fee to his hip. “I am forced by the requirements of good breeding and honor to endure your company in the saddle for however long it takes to return you to the dubious care of your wardens, and may God pity them that responsibility.”
“I get to ride your horse?”
“We get to ride my horse. If you were a boy, I’d leave you here to the mercy of passing strangers or allow you to crawl home.”
He might have been teasing. The accent made it difficult to tell—as did the scowl. “You thought I was boy?”
“Don’t sound so pleased. I thought you were a nuisance, and I still do. Can you balance?”
He deposited her next to the treaty oak, which meant she could stand on one foot and lean on the tree. “I want to take my shoes off.” He wrinkled that big nose of his, looking like he smelled something rank. “My feet are clean. Aunt Hester makes me take a bath every night whether I need one or not.”
This Abomination Against the Natural Order—another one of Aunt Hester’s terms—did not appear to impress the man. Fee wondered if anything impressed him—and what a poverty that would be, as Aunt would say, to go through the whole day without once being impressed.
He hunkered before her, and he was even tall when he knelt. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”
Fee complied, finding his shoulder every bit as sturdy as the oak. He unlaced her boot, but when he tried to ease it off her foot, she had to squeal with the pain of it.
“Wrenched it properly, then. Here.” He pulled off his gloves and passed them to her. “Bite down on one of those, hard enough to cut right through the leather, and scream if you have to. I have every confidence you can ruin my hearing if you make half an effort.”
She took the gloves, which were warm and supple. “Are you an uncle?”
“As it happens, this dolorous fate has befallen me.”
“Is that a firmative?”
“It is. Why?”
“Because you’re trying to distract me, which is something my uncles do a lot. I won’t scream.”
He regarded her for a moment, looking almost as if he might say something not quite so fussy, then bent to glare at her boot. “Suit yourself, as it appears you are in the habit of doing.”
She braced herself; she even put one of the riding gloves between her teeth, because as badly as her ankle hurt, she expected taking off her boot would cause the kind of pain that made her ears roar and her vision dim around the edges.
She neither screamed nor bit through the glove—which tasted like reins and horse—because before she could even draw in a proper breath, her boot was gently eased off her foot.
“I suppose you want the other one off too?”
“Is my ankle all bruised and horrible?”
“Your ankle is slightly swollen. It will likely be bruised before the day is out, but perhaps not horribly if we can get ice on it.”
“Are you a priest?”
“For pity’s sake, child. First an uncle, then a priest? What can you be thinking?” He sat her in the grass and started unlacing her second boot.
“You talk like Vicar on Sunday, though on Saturday night, he sounds like everybody else when he’s having his pint. If my ankle is awful, Aunt Hester will cry and feed me shortbread with my tea. She might even play cards with me. My uncles taught me how to cheat, but explained I must never cheat unless I’m playing with them.”
“Honor among thieves being the invention of the Scots, this does not surprise me.” He tied the laces of both boots into a knot and slung them around Fee’s neck.
“I’m a Scot.”
His lips quirked. Maybe this was what it looked like when the Wrath of God was afraid he might smile.
“My condolences. Except for your unfortunate red hair, execrable accent, and the layer of dirt about your person, I would never have suspected.”
Mary Fran and Matthew
One glimpse of Lady Mary Frances MacGregor, and Matthew Daniels forgot all about the breathtaking Highland scenery and the misbegotten purpose for his visit to Aberdeenshire.
“For the duration of your stay, our house is your house,” Lady Mary Frances said. She strode along the corridor of her brother’s country home with purpose, not with the mincing, corseted gait of a London lady, and she had music in her voice. Her walk held music as well, in the rhythm and sway of her hips, in the rustle of her p
etticoats and the crisp tattoo of her boots on the polished wood floors.
Though what music had to do with anything, Matthew was at a loss to fathom. “The Spanish have a similar saying, my lady: mi casa es su casa.”
“My house is your house.” She either guessed or made the translation easily. “You’ve been to Spain, then?”
“In Her Majesty’s Army, one can travel a great deal.”
A shadow creased her brow, quickly banished and replaced by a smile. “And now you’ve traveled to our doorstep. This is your room, Mr. Daniels, though we’ve others if you’d prefer a different view.”
She preceded him into the room, leaving Matthew vaguely disconcerted. A proper young woman would not be alone with a gentleman in his private quarters, and Mary Frances MacGregor, being the daughter of an earl, was a lady even in the sense of having a courtesy title—though Matthew had never before met a lady with hair that lustrous shade of dark red, or a figure so perfectly designed to thwart a man’s gentlemanly self-restraint.
“The view is quite acceptable.”
The view was magnificent, including, as it did, the backside of Lady Mary Frances as she bent to struggle with a window sash. She was a substantial woman, both tall and well formed, and Matthew suspected her arms would be trim with muscle, not the smooth, pale appendages a gentleman might see at a London garden party.
“Allow me.” He went to her side and jiggled the sash on its runners, hoisting the thing easily to allow in some fresh air.
“The maids will close it by teatime,” Lady Mary Frances said. “The nights can be brisk, even in high summer. Will you be needing a bath before the evening meal?”
She put the question casually—just a hostess inquiring after the welfare of a guest—but her gaze slid over him, a quick, assessing flick of green eyes bearing a hint of speculation. He might not fit in an old-fashioned bathing tub was what the gaze said, nothing more.
Nonetheless, he dearly wanted to get clean after long days of traveling. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“No trouble at all. The bathing chamber is just down the hall to the left, the cistern is full, and the boilers have been going since noon.”
She peered into the empty wardrobe, passing close enough to Matthew that he caught a whiff of something female… Flowers. Not roses, which were probably the only flower he knew by scent, but… fresher than roses, less cloying.
“If you need anything to make your visit more enjoyable, Mr. Daniels, you have only to ask, and we’ll see to it. Highland hospitality isn’t just the stuff of legends.”
“My thanks.”
She frowned at the high four-poster and again walked past him, though this time she picked up the tartan draped across the foot of the bed. The daughter of an earl ought not to be fussing the blankets, but Matthew liked the sight of her, snapping out the red, white, and blue woolen blanket and giving it a good shake. Her attitude said that nothing, not dust, not visiting English, not a houseful of her oversized brothers, would daunt this woman.
Without thinking, Matthew picked up the two corners of the blanket that had drifted to the blue-and-red tartan rug.
“Will you be having other guests this summer?” He put the question to her as they stepped toward each other.
“Likely not.” She grasped the corners he’d picked up, their fingers brushing.
Matthew did not step back. Mary Frances MacGregor—Lady Mary Frances MacGregor—had freckles over the bridge of her nose. They were faint, even delicate, and they made her look younger. She could have powdered them into oblivion, but she hadn’t.
“Mr. Daniels?” She gave the blanket a tug.
Matthew moved back a single step. “You typically have only one set of guests each summer?” Whatever her scent, it wasn’t only floral, but also held something spicy, fresh like cedar, but not quite cedar.
“No, we usually have as many guests as the brief summers here permit, particularly once Her Majesty and His Royal Highness are ensconced next door. But if your sister becomes engaged to my brother, there will be other matters to see to, won’t there?”
This question, alluding to much and saying little, was accompanied by an expression that involved the corners of the lady’s lips turning up, and yet it wasn’t a smile.
“I suppose there will.” Things like settling a portion of the considerable Daniels’s wealth into the impoverished Balfour coffers. Things like preparing for the wedding of a lowly English baron’s daughter to a Scottish earl.
“We’ll gather in the parlor for drinks before the evening meal, Mr. Daniels. The parlor is directly beneath us, one floor down. Any footman can direct you.”
She was insulting him. Matthew took a moment to decipher this, and in the next moment, he realized the insult was not intentional. Some of the MacGregor’s “guests,” wealthy English wanting to boast of a visit to the Queen’s own piece of the Highlands, probably spent much of their stay too inebriated to navigate even the corridors of the earl’s country house.
“I’ll find my way, though at some point, I would also like to be shown where the rest of my family is housed.”
“Of course.” Another non-smile. She glanced around the room the way Matthew had seen generals look over the troops prior to a parade review, her lips flattening, her gaze seeking any detail out of order. “Until dinner, Mr. Daniels.”
She bobbed a curtsy and whirled away before Matthew could even offer her a proper bow.
***
“Miss MacGregor?”
Mary Fran’s insides clenched at the sound of Baron Altsax’s voice. She pasted a smile on her face and tried to push aside the need to check on the dining room, the kitchen, and the ladies’ guest rooms—and the need to locate Fiona.
The child tended to hide when a new batch of guests came to stay.
“Baron, what may I do for you?”
“I had a few questions, Miss MacGregor, if you wouldn’t mind?” He gestured to his bedroom, his smile suggesting he knew damned good and well the insult he did an earl’s daughter by referring to her as “Miss” anything. A double insult, in fact.
Mary Fran did not follow the leering old buffoon into his room. Altsax’s son, the soft-spoken Mr. Daniels, would reconnoiter before he started bothering the help—though big, blond, good-looking young men seldom needed to bother the help—not so with the skinny, pot-gutted old men. “I’m a bit behindhand, my lord. Was it something I could send a maid to tend to?”
The baron gestured toward the drinking pitcher on the escritoire, while Mary Fran lingered at the threshold. “This water is not chilled, I’ve yet to see a tea service, and prolonged travel by train can leave a man in need of something to wash the dust from his throat.”
He arched one supercilious eyebrow, as if it took some subtle instinct to divine when an Englishman was whining for his whisky.
“The maids will be along shortly with the tea service, my lord. You’ll find a decanter with some of our best libation on the nightstand, and I can send up some chilled water.” Because they at least had ice to spare in the Highlands.
“See that you do.”
Mary Fran tossed him a hint of a curtsy and left before he could make up more excuses to lure her into his room.
The paying guests were a source of much-needed coin, but the summers were too short, and the expenses of running Balfour too great for paying guests alone to reverse the MacGregor family fortunes. The benefit of this situation was that no coin was on hand to dower Mary Fran, should some fool—brother, guest, or distant relation—take a notion she was again in want of a husband.
“Mary Fran, for God’s sake, slow down.” She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized her brother Ian had approached her from the top of the stairs. “Where are you churning off to in such high dudgeon? Con and Gil sent me to fetch you to the family parlor for a wee dram.”
Ian’s gaze was weary and concerned, the same as Con or Gil’s would have been, though Ian, as the oldest, was the weariest and the
most concerned—also the one willing to marry Altsax’s featherbrained daughter just so Fiona might someday have a decent dowry.
“I have to check on the kitchens, Ian, and make sure that dim-witted Hetta McKinley didn’t forget the butter dishes again, and Eustace Miller has been lurking on the maids’ stairway so he can make calf eyes at—”
“Come, you.” Ian tucked her hand over his arm. “You deserve a few minutes with family more than the maids need to be protected from Eustace Miller’s calf eyes. Let the maids have some fun, and let yourself take five minutes to catch your breath. Go change into your finery and meet us in the family parlor. I’ll need your feminine perspective if I’m to coax Altsax’s daughter up the church aisle.”
Ian had typical MacGregor height and green eyes to go with dark hair and a handsome smile—none of which was worth a single groat. In Asher’s continued absence, Ian was also the laird, and well on his way to being officially recognized as the earl. While neither honor generated coin, the earldom allowed him the prospect of marrying an heiress with a title-hungry papa.
Mary Fran did not bustle off to change her dress for any of those reasons, or even because she needed to stay abreast of whatever her three brothers were thinking regarding Ian’s scheme to marry wealth.
She heeded her brother’s direction because she wanted that wee dram—wanted it far too much.
Watch for the first in Grace Burrowes’s exciting NEW Captive Hearts Regency trilogy
The Captive
While being held captive and tortured by the French, Christian, Duke of Mercia, lost his wife and son, and very nearly his will to live. He returns to England broken in spirit, until Gillian, Countess of Windmere, shows him that winning her heart is the most important battle of all.
Available July 2014 from Sourcebooks Casablanca
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes’s bestsellers include The Heir, The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish, and Lady Eve’s Indiscretion. The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier was a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight was a Library Journal Best Book of 2012, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid—the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances—was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. Her historical romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.
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