by Julia London
If his family didn’t love her instantly, he would be forced to seriously consider severing all ties, for who could not love this woman?
Together, chins up, squeezing one another’s hand for strength, they walked forward. When the door of the main entry swung open, Grif heard Anna catch her breath… and then release it in a huge whoosh. “Mr. Dudley!” she cried, and let go Grif’s hand to run to the old butler. At least, Grif thought, himself quite relieved, Dudley had made it home all right. He was happy to see him well.
Dudley, however, looked rather shocked. He gaped at Anna, then at Grif, then at Anna again as she threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “You did arrive safely!” she cried. “And your gout. How does it fare?”
“Quite well, miss,” he said. “Me wife, Fiona, she has the special herbs.”
“Dudley, lad! How grand of ye to make it home alive,” Grif said, reaching for his hand.
“Thank ye, sir. Oh dear, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “Oh dear.”
“Aye,” Grif said sheepishly.
“I hate to be a bother, Dudley,” Anna said, “but…” She stepped closer, whispered conspiratorially, “Do you think you might find us a bit of food? We used our last coin somewhere near… actually, I’m hardly sure where, but it has been quite a long while, and we are rather famished.”
Dudley never got a chance to answer, because Liam came striding out the door behind him with a look that would have frightened a troll. Grif reared back, half expecting Liam to punch him, but he grabbed Grif, squeezed him tightly in a bear hug, then let him go. “Ye’re alive,” he said. “I always believed they’d kill ye, I did.”
“Aye, they’d certainly like to see me dead,” Grif said. Liam grinned proudly, then turned to Anna— and his jaw dropped. “No!” he bellowed.
“What a pleasure to make your acquaintance again, sir,” Anna said, curtseying deep in her riding trousers.
Liam looked at Grif. Grif shrugged helplessly. “Mi Diah,” Liam cried, slapping his hand to his forehead. “Did ye no’ get me letter, then, Grif? I told ye to stay far away from this one!”
“No, I didna receive any letter—”
“No! Miss Addison?” Ellie cried behind Liam.
“Miss Farnsworth?” Anna shouted, and the two women shrieked simultaneously, running to one another’s arms, whirling around with pleasure as Liam groaned helplessly and the rest of Grif’s family spilled out onto the grassy lawn.
“What is it, what is it?” Carson cried, looking from Grif to Anna and back again.
“I think Grif brought his wife here, too,” Natalie offered helpfully.
“Ach, for the love of God!” Aila cried, looking as if she might faint.
“But where is MacAlister?” Carson demanded. “What have ye done with him?”
“Perhaps we should all go inside and sit down,” Grif suggested.
“Oh no,” his father said, and closing his eyes, he leaned his head back. “God in heaven.”
No one would sit, of course. Grif and Anna stood, hand in hand, at one end of the old great room. Grif’s family stood on the other end of the room, all eyeing him like the devil, with the exception of Ellie, who beamed like sunshine and continued to assure Anna that their bark was far worse than their bite.
“Ye may as well begin with yer…friend,” Aila said, looking at Anna. And her trousers.
“Actually, Mother… she’s me wife,” Grif said, and instantly threw up his hands at the cries of glee and despair. “Mother, Mother!” he shouted, gaining her attention. “I love her, more than me very life. We married in Gretna Green.”
“Oh no, oh no…”
“It’s quite all right, Lady Lockhart,” Anna said. “We wrote my parents and explained everything.”
Aila sank into a chair and threw a hand over her eyes.
“I suppose we’ll have yer story soon enough,” Liam said, “even though ye swore ye’d no’ hie yerself home with a wife—”
“Liam!” Ellie chided him.
“But what of the beastie, Grif?” Liam demanded. “Dudley said ye had found it. Where is it, then?”
Grif and Anna exchanged nervous glances. “With MacAlister,” Grif said.
They all leaned forward.
Grif shrugged.
“I’ll ask,” Carson said. “Where, then, is MacAlister… and the beastie?”
Grif cleared his throat. “I, ah …I wouldna rightly know, Father.”
There was a moment of stumned silence. “Wouldna know?” his father echoed incredulously.
“All right, here it is, then,” Grif said, and set Anna away from him, lest there be any hurling of objects. “We had the beastie, we did, in Gretna Green. But then… then there was the matter of our wedding,” he said, flashing a smile at his bride. “And MacAlister, well…he wasna alone.”
All eyes widened; no one as much as blinked.
“He, ah…he saved an Irish lass,” he tried to explain delicately.
All eyes went wider.
“Which I didna know, for we’d split apart, aye? For I was…well, essentially, I was kidnapping Anna—”
“Aaah!” his mother cried.
“I had no choice, Mother,” Grif hastily explained. “There were certain to be rather dire consequences if I was found with Anna and the beastie—probably a hanging, it would seem, as our cousin Lockhart suspected foul play, and then all would be lost, aye? So Hugh and I… we agreed to go our separate ways and meet in Gretna Green in a fortnight, and he arrived with a lass.”
“And?” Carson roared.
“And…” Grif sighed. There was no getting around it. “And he stole the beastie on our wedding night, and he and Miss Brody fled with it.”
The thunk they heard was Mared keeling over. With twin shrieks of surprise, Ellie and Aila were instantly at her side, and a wail unlike anything Grif had ever heard rose up from his sister.
“What have ye done, Griffin?” his father roared. “What in the bloody hell have ye done but bring us another mouth to feed?”
Everyone gasped with shock and looked at Anna. She looked at Grif with fear in her eyes.
Natalie walked calmly across the room, slipped her hand into Anna’s. “You mustn’t worry about Grandfather,” she said. “He often says things he doesn’t mean in the least.”
“Aye,” Carson said with a weary sigh, and walked to Anna, his arms open. “I’m sure ye’ll grow on us, lass. The last one certainly did,” he said, and hugged her, welcoming her into their fold.
Thirty-two
I t took less than a month for the family to cherish Anna as one of their own, particularly when she announced that she was with child. Nothing might have endeared her as quickly as that.
Aila and Carson, after much consideration, penned a letter to Anna’s parents, to inform them that she was indeed quite well and cared for and the love of their son’s life. In a month’s time, they received a reply from Lord Whittington, who, surprisingly, expressed his great relief and pleasure that his Anna had found happiness, and that he’d been rather fond of the Scot—far fonder of the Scot than his English cousin, who, it seemed, would become his son-in-law by marrying his youngest daughter, Lucy.
But Lord Whittington further wrote that while he was happy for his daughter’s good fortune, and had always wished a match that would suit her uncommon spirit, the same could not be said for his lady wife, and it might be some time yet before that rift was healed. He mentioned in passing the scandal Anna’s flight had caused, and sent a bit of money for her keep as his wife refused to send Anna’s dowry, given the circumstances. It wasn’t much, but it was a welcome relief to the Lockharts.
And last, but not least, Lord Whittington reported that Mr. Fynster-Allen had surprised everyone by offering for Miss Amelia Crabtree. The two were to be married at the Christmas season. Grif was quite pleased to hear it.
Most evenings, the Lockharts played a game in which they tried to determine where Hugh might have gone with the beastie. His father, Car
son’s old friend, had not heard from his son, nor had Hugh’s friends in Edinburgh. And with the exception of the day Grif had come home, Mared had remained remarkably serene about the whole thing, worrying her parents and delighting her brothers.
But on one very sunny afternoon, as Ellie and Anna continued work on the gazebo, Mared sat and stared at the mountain that separated Talla Dileas from the Douglas estate.
“In truth, Mared,” Ellie said carefully, “Douglas seems a good man.”
Mared snorted.
“It won’t be so very bad, marrying him,” Ellie added. “He seems to rather esteem you. He’ll make a fine husband.”
“Ye’re quite right, Ellie, he shall undoubtedly make a good husband to one of the ladies from Edinburgh he seems to enjoy so very much.”
Ellie exchanged a look with Anna. “But… what of the terms of the loan? I meant for you, Mared.”
“Oh that!” Mared said gaily. “There are six months until our year is through! And one canna guess what might happen in that time.” With an enigmatic smile, she strolled out of the gazebo. “I think I shall pick some berries for supper,” she called over her shoulder, and walked into the woods, leaving her sisters-inlaw to wonder if perhaps the strain of it all had caused the poor lass to lose her mind.