“That is brilliant,” the earl said. “A lady can natter on about why this or why that for hours, and then why not the other.”
“You didn’t unearth that insight on your own,” the colonel interjected. “Ellen put you on to it, and you’re taking the credit.”
Nancy Pants grinned, looking abruptly like Colin—a younger sibling who’d got over on his elders, again.
“Gentlemen, please,” Miss Megan said. “Valentine’s smile presages fisticuffs, and we’ve already obligingly moved the furniture aside. The point of the gathering is not to indulge your juvenile glee in one another’s company but rather to make certain that His Grace of Murdoch acquits himself well at Aunt Esther’s gathering.”
Three handsome lords looked fleetingly abashed.
Women did this. They wore slippers that could kick a man’s figurative backside with the force of a jackboot. Their verbal kid gloves could slap with the sting of a riding crop, and their scowls could reduce a fellow’s innards to three-day-old neeps and tatties.
To see three English aristocrats so effectively thrashed did a Scottish soldier’s heart good.
“Small talk can be learned,” the ducal heir said, entirely too confidently. “You’re good with languages, Megs. Teach your duke the London ballroom dialect of small talk. If my brothers could learn it, it’s not that difficult.”
“If you hadn’t had my example to follow—” the colonel growled.
“Would you please?” Edana asked. “We’ve tried, but Hamish … he’s stubborn.”
“And slow,” Rhona added. “Not dull, but everything must make sense to him, and that is a challenging undertaking when so much about polite society is for the sake of appearance rather than substance.”
They were being helpful again, drat them both. “I manage well enough in the kirk yard.”
“Church yard,” all three cousins said at once.
“Where I come from, where I am a duke, it’s a kirk yard,” Hamish said. “And to there I will soon return, the sooner the better.”
Edana’s expression promised Hamish a violent end before he could set a foot on the Great North Road. Rhona looked like she wanted to cry, however, and that … that shamed a man as falling on his arse before English nobility never could.
“Walk in the park,” Lord Nancy Pants said. “Tomorrow, if the weather is fair, Megan can join His Grace for a walk in the park. Joseph and Louisa are in Town, Evie and Deene are as well. Take Lady Rhona and Lady Edana walking, Murdoch. Megan will be attended by a pair of cousins-in-law, both of them titled, and you can rehearse your small talk.”
“Excellent tactics,” the colonel muttered.
“Her Grace would approve,” the earl said. “I like it. Megan?”
She’d rather be called Meggie by those who cared for her. Hamish would rather sneak off to Scotland that very moment. Hyde Park was a huge place, crammed full of bonnets, parasols, ambushes wearing sprigged muslin, and half-pay peacocks in their regimentals.
Rhona looked at her slippers—peach-ish today, more expensive idiocy.
Studying his sister’s bowed head, Hamish located the reserves of courage necessary to endure another battle.
“If Miss Megan can spare me the time to walk in the park, I would be grateful for her company.”
“Oh, well done, Your Grace,” she said, smiling at him. Not the great beaming version he’d seen on the dance floor, but an even more beguiling expression that turned her gaze soft and Hamish’s knees to porridge.
“Two of the clock, then,” the earl said. “Assemble here. I’ll make the introductions, and Her Grace’s ball will be the envy of polite society, as usual.”
Within five minutes, Hamish was bowing over Miss Megan’s hand in parting, though he’d committed himself to tomorrow’s skirmish in defense of MacHugh family pride—or something. The Windham cousins seemed genuinely, if grudgingly, intent on aiding the cause of Hamish’s education, probably for the sake of their own family pride.
And Miss Megan was smiling.
Hamish was so preoccupied with mentally assembling metaphors to describe her smile that he nearly missed the low rumble of the pianist’s voice amid the farewells and parting kisses of the ladies.
“He’s a disaster in plaid,” Lord Nancy Pants muttered.
“He provoked Megan into trotting out her Gaelic,” the colonel added. “Not the done thing.”
Well, no, it wasn’t. Falling on one’s arse was not the done thing, arguing with a lady was not the done thing. One ball, however, for the sake of Ronnie and Eddie’s pride, one little march about the park, and Hamish could retreat with honor, which sometimes was the done thing.
Hamish got Rhona by one arm, Edana by the other, and hauled them bodily toward the door, which was held open by a fellow in handsome blue livery.
“My thanks for the dancing lesson,” Hamish called, because expressing sincere gratitude was also the done thing where he came from. “Until tomorrow.”
Miss Megan waved to him. “Mar sin leibh.” A friendly farewell that fortified a man against coming battles and provoked both the colonel and the musician to scowling.
And as the liveried fellow closed the door, another snippet of clipped, masculine, aristocratic English came to Hamish’s ears.
“You give up too easily. I think Murdoch has potential, Rosebud.”
Chapter Five
London’s weather was abominably changeable. Megan’s eagerness to walk with the Duke of Murdoch was abominably fixed.
She was all but engaged to Sir Fletcher, a problem for which she could see no resolution, and yet, three-quarters of an hour tramping the familiar confines of Hyde Park was all she could think about.
“I hear you spoke a bit of the Gaelic with His Grace of Murdoch,” Mama said. In English. She sat at the piano and leafed through music in the chamber designated as the music library.
“I suspect Gaelic is His Grace’s first language,” Megan replied, extricating a fading daisy from the bouquet on the windowsill. “I merely asked a question that was easier to understand in Gaelic.”
Mama, being Welsh, had music in her blood and bones, in her very vowels and consonants. When she got out her violin and Valentine accompanied her at the keyboard, magic happened, and Papa’s eyes took on a particular gleam.
“You don’t aid the man’s cause by provoking him to speak Gaelic,” Mama said, paging through some Mozart chamber works. “His reputation is that of a savage, one who delighted in bloody murder for king and country, if the talk is to be believed. No wonder Lord Tarryton’s daughter cried off from her engagement to Murdoch all those years ago. Then he must wear his heathen attire on the very streets of Mayfair, argue with no less person than your dear aunt before one of the biggest gossips ever to open a modiste’s shop … You aren’t listening.”
Megan was listening, to the memory of a Scottish burr apologizing for sending her top over teakettle.
“Sir Fletcher also took up arms in defense of his country,” Megan said, finding another dead specimen amid the blooms. “Nobody calls him a murderer.” He was willing to murder a young woman’s future, though.
“Sir Fletcher comes from an excellent family, he dresses appropriately to his station, he has the look of a man who’s considering making an offer for you. Your attentions to Murdoch, while exactly the sort of kindness a true lady demonstrates in all circumstances, will not advance your situation, my dear, or your sisters’ situations.”
A third wilted daisy went onto the cloth Megan had laid out beside the bouquet.
“I see your point, Mama, but Westhaven suggested this walk in the park, and Westhaven promised titled escorts for Murdoch’s sisters.”
Westhaven, as the ducal heir, was the cousin who could do no wrong. In Megan’s estimation, Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven, Viscount Common Sense, Baron Dutiful, was also hard-pressed to have any fun. Uncle Percy agreed with her, which suggested the Almighty should consider documenting the same sentiment on stone tablets.
&
nbsp; Mama’s warning—all of Mama’s many warnings—were well meant, but simple logic plagued Megan nonetheless.
Aunt Esther extended a gesture of welcome to the new duke and was commended for her graciousness. Megan supported the duchess’s overture and was now risking her sisters’ prospects? Had Sir Fletcher not been parked on Megan’s figurative doorstep, Mama wouldn’t think twice about this walk in the park.
Anwen was painfully shy, Beth painfully on the shelf, and Charlotte painfully determined to marry when she was good and ready, not one instant before.
“There’s the coach coming ’round,” Mama said with the acuity of hearing known only to mothers. “Find your parasol, lose your Gaelic, and try not to let the duke develop any expectations. Charitable impulses are commendable, but we know who Sir Fletcher’s people are, and that’s a fine thing as well.”
Mama pinched Megan’s cheek gently, as she’d been pinching that same cheek since Megan’s infancy, and marched off toward the front door, Herr Mozart forgotten.
Megan pitched her dead flowers, cloth and all, into the nearest waste bin. They’d soon stink, a servant would find them, and this minuscule, impulsive rebellion in the park against Mama’s expectations would do no harm.
And it might accomplish a scintilla of good.
“You both look exceedingly fine,” Hamish snapped. “Stop fretting, and let’s get this over with.”
Edana’s mouth firmed, and Hamish prepared for another sibling skirmish on a Windham walkway.
Ronnie put a hand on Eddie’s arm. “He’s paying us a compliment, Eddie. Ham, you’re supposed to knock. If the knocker’s up, the household is receiving. Give it a tap, please.”
“When we’re scouting unfamiliar territory, Murdoch will do,” he said, rapping the knocker against the brass plate. The result was louder than pistol shots reverberating across the Mayfair street.
“Knock genteelly,” Ronnie hissed through a fixed smile. “Not as if you’re the excise man searching house to house for contraband whisky.”
Colin would have known how to knock, but Colin had not been invited on this sortie, and Hamish hadn’t known whether a spare sibling was permitted or not. Numbers apparently had to match on social outings, as was the case with a fair fight.
“Your Grace, ladies, welcome. You are expected.” Another fellow in blue livery was bowing them into the house. “I’ll announce you, if you’d be so good as to wait here a moment?”
Ronnie and Eddie did look quite fetching. Their red hair was brushed to a shine and styled atop their heads, accentuating height and the good bones of which MacHugh women were justifiably proud. Feathers and flowers adorned their coiffures in confections too colorful to be called bonnets. Their dresses might have beggared the dukedom’s exchequer, but in green and maroon, they made a fetching pair.
“I meant what I said, about you both looking fine,” Hamish muttered. “A bit of the plaid, and you’d be ready for any proper gathering.”
They exchanged That Look, the one that said he’d Done It Again, though nobody ever bothered to tell a man what It might be.
“Murdoch, Lady Edana, Lady Rhona, welcome,” their host said. “If you’ll join me in the family parlor, I’ll make the introductions.”
Oh, raptures abounding! More introductions.
Their host was Gayle, Earl of Westhaven. Over a few drams last night, Hamish had sat Colin down, got a diagram from him, and then memorized the relationships as any competent commander memorized a map of the terrain for an upcoming battle.
Making sense of that terrain was a more complicated undertaking.
If Edana and Rhona were nicely turned out, Miss Megan was perfectly attired. She wore toast-brown velvet trimmed with deep red and the occasional dash of cream.
Hamish bowed over her gloved hand. “You put me in mind of a perfectly baked scone, slathered with raspberry jam and fresh butter.” He’d offered this compliment at a point when the general conversation had paused, and that pause became a silence.
An awkward silence.
“Well done, Murdoch,” growled some earl or other. “Now we’re all famished.”
Megan Windham was apparently related to half the titles in Mayfair. This earl fellow was dark-haired, not exactly handsome, and had no pretensions to charm. Hamish liked him on sight. He had blunt features and the swooping scowl of an officer who didn’t waste his troops, horses, or shot, and waltzed at Wellington’s command and no other’s.
He also looked familiar, but Hamish could not place him, not with Megan Windham’s perfume stealing into his senses. She did look good enough to eat, and her fragrance … her fragrance was lovely enough to dream about.
“We’re to work on our small talk,” Miss Megan said as the party marched out into the afternoon sunshine. “Have you thought up any questions suitable for the dance floor, Your Grace?”
He’d made a list after he’d studied Colin’s battle map. “Who is madam’s favorite composer? Does the lady have a preferred musical instrument? What is her favorite season of the year? What scent recommends itself to her on a gentleman’s person?”
Thanks to the pianist, Hamish knew to append “Why?” to each of those inquiries. Why not only kept the lady talking but probably revealed more tactical intelligence than all the foregoing questions put together.
Meaning Hamish would not underestimate Megan’s pianist cousin, despite his lace.
“That last one might be risky—the one about a gentleman’s scent,” Miss Megan said. “Late at night, the typical ballroom can be … close.”
“Rank, you mean? I’ve smelled worse.”
“You mustn’t say that, Your Grace. When I made my come out, I developed a list of bachelors whom I dubbed the Parsley Princes—gentlemen who ought to spend more time freshening their breath before they ask to stand up with a lady. Call upon your thespian skills if you must, but try to exude equable good cheer, pleasure in the lady’s company, and gentility at all times.”
The very qualities that would have got Hamish’s men killed on the Peninsula. “I’m known for exuding rage, Miss Megan. I’m the Berserker of Badajoz, the Terror of Toulouse. You needn’t spare my sensibilities.”
“Why?” She’d fired off her question quietly, so the rest of the party would not have heard her over the rattle of passing coaches and clip-clip of hooves.
Honesty was a relief, but a sad one. “Why not bother with delicacy? Because I haven’t sensibilities to spare.” Not the polite variety, at least.
“No, I meant, why are you the Terror of Toulouse and the Berserker of Badajoz. Why are you the Duke of Murder? There were other soldiers at all those battles, doing what soldiers do.”
Across Park Lane lay the green beauty of Hyde Park, relatively quiet at this hour, though it would fill up with carriages soon. The high flyers and their escorts, polite society, and everything in between assembled on fine days in the late afternoon for parade inspection.
To Hamish, veteran of too many battles, Hyde Park’s hedges and wrought-iron fences prevented orderly retreat. The towering maples might hide snipers, the Serpentine could drown recruits unable to swim, and firing at water turned the trajectory of bullets unpredictable.
“If I discuss the war with you, I will commit a great breach of etiquette,” Hamish said, though kissing Miss Megan would be a greater breach—and a far lovelier memory.
“I’ll just put my questions to Keswick, Deene, or St. Just. They’ll tell me.”
Keswick was apparently the cranky dark-haired earl, while the Marquess of Deene was the little marchioness’s husband, and Devlin St. Just was the Earl of Rosecroft.
“They won’t tell you much, Miss Meggie. Wartime memories are best not shared in genteel company.”
She marched along at a good clip until they’d crossed the street and entered the park through a pair of imposing gates.
“I can’t deflect the gossip if I don’t know its source, Your Grace. Forewarned is forearmed, and my cousins will so tell me. One will let s
omething slip if I’m persistent, probably Keswick because he’s so softhearted. I’ll take that morsel to Lord Deene and imply that I know more than I do. Deene will let one more fact slip, which I’ll stitch together with the first to create an inference. The process takes patience and timing, but my family numbers several veterans. On Mama’s side, they can be quite garrulous in the right mood.”
When tipsy, in other words. The London season involved a fair amount of tipsiness, apparently.
The park was quiet, which meant Hamish had to lower his voice. “I notice you do not solicit the assistance of Sir Fletcher.”
Pilkington would be happy to explain the particulars of Hamish’s military record to her in all their gory ignominy, and his version of Hamish’s history would be ignominious indeed.
“I wouldn’t start with Sir Fletcher.”
They’d put some distance between themselves and the rest of the party, which was fortunate. Miss Megan should have been instructing Hamish about small talk, not digging tunnels under his defenses.
“You’d go to Sir Fletcher if your cousins refused to oblige? Very well, then, I killed people.”
The words … hurt. They brought to mind the horrendous noise and stink of battle, but also the surprise and bewilderment of men who’d got up that morning never expecting to end the day—or their lives—on the end of Hamish’s bayonet.
In Hamish’s eyes, they would have seen apology, regret, and a determination to kill again.
“You were a soldier,” Miss Megan said. “I suspect you were a very good one, maybe too good.”
He nearly went stumbling onto his arse again. This woman was capable of wielding words with more deadly skill than any sniper could fire a weapon.
“Let’s leave the matter there, shall we? I would not want to argue with a lady. Why do you suppose ladies are not prohibited from arguing with gentlemen?”
Miss Megan showed him mercy, and allowed the change of subject. “Because an argument takes two parties at least. If one refuses to engage, then there can be no argument. Ladies might attempt to provoke a fellow to a disagreement, but if he thwarts their efforts with his charm and politesse, then no argument will ensue. Who is your favorite composer, Your Grace?”
The Trouble With Dukes Page 6