“One of few skills I can claim with confidence, your ladyship, and I know it’s time you were abed.”
A large, long-haired black cat came strutting into the library, tail held high. The animal sniffed here and there, in the manner of cats.
“That’s Lucifer. He’s Pamela’s cat. Fletcher says Lucifer is her family.”
“Her familiar, you mean. He’s a grand fellow. Seems everybody worth knowing is awake past their bedtime in this house.”
Geneva rested her head against Hamish’s shoulder. “I like you, Thomas. Harold likes you too. Will you read me a story?”
Well, damn. “Is that why you came down to the library? To find a story?”
On the street before the house, a coach went clattering past, the sound isolated at an otherwise quiet hour.
“I can’t read in the dark,” Geneva said, “but I like to have a book with me, to put under my pillow. Harold likes knowing our stories are close by too.”
The cat stropped itself against Hamish’s stockings, and if the damned beast could have spoken, it would probably have asked to have a tray sent up from the kitchen, and a fire lit in the hearth.
The sound of shod hooves against cobbles slowed, then faded as the coach reached the corner.
“I must insist you return to the nursery, milady. The hour is quite late, and you need to set a good example for Harold. Perhaps tomorrow, she can go riding on Lucifer’s back if he’s in an obliging mood.”
“Lucifer doesn’t like that game. I got scratched the last time we tried to play, and Fletcher said it serves me right. My nurse tipples. I think that means she snores.”
“Something like that,” Hamish said, setting the child on her feet. “I must stay here at my post in the library until your family comes home, and you must warn Harold not to wander the house late at night. She might stub her toes, bruise her shins, or come tumbling down the stairs.”
“Harold and I slide down the bannister.”
“I’m sure you do.”
The hoofbeats that had faded abruptly sounded more loudly, as if the coach that had just passed the house was now coming up the alley.
“That’s our coach,” Geneva said, running to the window. “I know the sound of our coach.”
“Then up to bed with you and Harold this instant.”
“My sisters will tell me all about who danced the waltz and who was a fox,” she said, spinning around again. “Good night, Thomas! I hope your new livery comes soon.”
She scampered off with one more pirouette, Harold held by one wrist. Harold’s feet whipped past the hearth, and clipped the top of the stand that held all of the cast iron fireplace implements, sending the lot teetering toward the bricks.
At the same moment, Lucifer decided to strop himself against Hamish’s wool stockings again, and as Lady Geneva and her doll disappeared through the library doorway, Hamish made a dodge for the hearth stand, only to overbalance as the cat tangled between his feet.
“Murdoch!” Megan couldn’t shout across the garden, lest she wake a sister still sleeping in the house, but the dratted man did not respond to his title. “Hamish MacHugh!”
That got his attention, just as he was about to swing into the saddle. “Miss Megan. Good morning. I was told you were not at home.”
Megan looked both ways to ensure no inconvenient neighbors, sisters, or parents were strolling up the alley, then crossed the cobbles to steer His Grace through the garden gate.
“Please walk the duke’s horse,” Megan said to the groom. “We’ll be but a few minutes.”
The groom, who’d known Megan since she’d fallen off her first pony, didn’t so much as blink before flipping the gelding’s reins over its head and leading it away.
“Don’t look as if your only means of escape has just been closed off,” Megan said. “I told the staff I was indisposed because I’m dodging my papa. Why are you limping?”
“Had a wee mishap. Took a tumble onto my, er, hip, and some disobliging bricks broke my fall.”
He was being stoic, or Scottish, or simply male. “You’re probably bruised halfway to next Christmas, and I divine this is my fault. I am doomed to land you in awkward situations. Does this latest injury pain you very much?”
Nothing short of serious discomfort could have robbed His Grace of his military bearing. Megan closed the garden door behind him, and led him to the sunken fountain in the back corner. Hedges bordered the fountain—one side each given to honeysuckle, privet, lilacs, and trellised roses. The privet stood between the fountain and the house, which ensured a measure of privacy.
“Time will put me to rights,” Murdoch said. “I have your letters, Miss Meggie, and that’s what matters.” He extracted a packet of folded papers from an inside pocket and held them out to her. “I did not count them or so much as glance at them, so you’d best make sure they’re all here.”
Had King George, the entire Eighty-Second Foot, and the biggest gossips in Mayfair been peering over the garden hedges, Megan could not have stopped herself from wrapping her arms around the duke.
“Thank you,” she said against the wool of his riding jacket. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you isn’t enough, it doesn’t convey—Oh, drat, I hate to cry.”
“So do I,” Murdoch said, his arms enfolding her. “Sometimes, the tears must have their moment.”
Megan wept for shame carried too long and too close to her heart, and for relief, and for sheer joy, to have found a champion who’d defeated Sir Fletcher so handily.
“I want to stand outside Sir Fletcher’s house and shout rude taunts,” Megan said, accepting a plain linen square from the duke. “I never shout.”
“And you’re never rude,” Murdoch replied, his hand glossing over Megan’s hair, “but when you’ve broken a siege you thought would never end, only rude shouting will do—or worse.”
For an odd moment, Megan had the sense that the embrace had become mutual, as if she’d lashed her arms around Murdoch in an excess of emotion and provoked some answering sentiment in him. She eased her grip, but did not let him go.
“Rosecroft claims the sieges were awful,” she said, “and what followed was even worse. I can understand a little bit why. I have my letters, and now I want to steal something from Sir Fletcher to get back the rest of what he tried to take from me.”
Murdoch stepped away. “Brutality in victory would only give you cause for regret, Miss Meggie. I’d rather endure the march to Corunna all over again, than live two minutes of the aftermath of Badajoz.”
Megan could hardly reconcile that gently spoken admonition with the handsomely attired gentleman before her. Murdoch’s eyes said he knew all about brutality in victory, and in captivity, and every place in between, and she hated that more than she hated Sir Fletcher Pilkington.
The duke’s embrace had said other things—sweet, precious sentiments Megan wanted to savor as much as she wanted to enjoy besting Sir Fletcher.
“Please sit with me,” she said, choosing the bench behind the highest hedge. “You must count the letters for me, because my hands are shaking.”
Murdoch scooped up the packet from the bench where Megan had tossed it, and produced a flask from an inside pocket.
“A wee dram to steady your nerves.”
The flask was warm from his body heat, and embossed with a rampant unicorn wreathed in thistles.
Megan unscrewed the cap and passed the open container under her nose. “This is whisky.” Soldiers drank whisky.
“Colin owns a fine distillery. Don’t stop to admire the flavor or get acquainted. Just down the hatch.”
“Slàinte!” Megan muttered, tipping the flask up. She hadn’t tried whisky since she and Charlotte had got hold of Papa’s hunting flask ten years ago. After one sip, Charlotte had pronounced all men mad. Megan had been coughing too hard to speak.
“Do dheagh shlàinte,” Murdoch rejoined. Your good health.
Megan took the tiniest sip, and braced herself for fire and mayhe
m but got only … warmth. Lovely, delicious, bracing warmth. A kiss from within, a hint of brilliant sunshine and scouring sea breezes with the barest traces of heather and spice beneath.
“Lovely,” she said, patting the place beside her. “Read me the dates of the letters and I’ll keep a count.”
Murdoch helped himself to a dram, put the flask away, then lowered himself gingerly to the bench.
“You took more than a tumble, Your Grace. First we’ll count the letters, then you’ll tell me exactly what happened.”
He read over a series of dates, thirty-one in all, and as the total climbed closer to the number that had haunted Megan since Sir Fletcher had first threatened her, the day shifted from pretty, to promising, to glorious.
“They’re all there,” she said. “Every one, present and accounted for. You have done the impossible, and made short work of it. Anything you could possibly ask of me is yours to command, Murdoch.”
Though what had she, a shortsighted, retiring, redhaired spinster-in-training, to offer a titled, wealthy, seasoned soldier?
He patted her knee and passed her the letters, which Megan set aside rather than hold in her hand one moment longer than necessary.
“I’m off to Scotland tomorrow,” he said. “I’d be most obliged if you’d keep an eye on Ronnie and Eddie in my absence. They are new to fancy society and might not see the ambushes they’re riding into. They’ll need friends, and you know what you’re about when it comes to the London season.”
More rude words popped into Megan’s head, for she did not want her friend and champion leaving for the north now, when she was finally free to be his friend too.
“You ask nothing for yourself,” she said. “Your sisters did not retrieve these awful letters, you did. Have you no wishes or wants of your own that I might aid before you travel on?”
He shifted, suggesting a hard bench was an uncomfortable perch—or that he was preparing to prevaricate.
“I have wishes and wants,” he replied, “and my family’s happiness figures prominently among them. You understand about wanting family to be safe and happy, else those letters would not have been a problem, Miss Meggie.”
True. “I want you to be safe and happy too.” And she did not want him to be hundreds of miles away in Scotland. “Was it difficult to retrieve the letters?”
Another shift. “I made the acquaintance of the youngest Pilkington, a wee lass by the name of Geneva. In about ten years, she’ll set the town on its ear, but she was hospitable enough to a bumbling footman who hadn’t any livery yet. Unfortunately, I also made the acquaintance of Lady Pamela’s cat, who did his best to knock over the hearth set and myself as well.”
“You had an adventure,” Megan said, though it sounded as if His Grace’s adventure had also been a perilously close call.
He rose stiffly. “All’s well. You have your letters, and I can be on my way.”
Megan had no choice but to see him to his horse. “Will you fetch your sisters home at the end of the season?”
“Colin can see them home, assuming they don’t find English gentlemen to take to husband. The novelty of this excursion will soon pale for them both, I’m guessing, and they’ll be glad to get back to Scotland.”
“You are homesick.” What could Megan offer to compete with home? Mama still missed Wales decades after marrying Papa, and despite claiming that where her family was would always be her home.
“Homesick? That, I am. Have been for half my life,” Murdoch said. “I would like you to promise me something, Miss Meggie.”
“Of course.” Maybe he’d ask her to write to him, and of all gentlemen, Hamish MacHugh, Duke of Murdoch, was the one to whom Megan would feel safe putting any sentiment on paper.
“You must not be writing to any gentlemen in the future,” he said as they approached the high wall at the back of the garden. “Mind your reputation closely, because once Sir Fletcher discovers the letters are missing, he’ll not accept defeat easily. He’ll waylay you if he can, he’ll spread rumors without any basis in fact, he’ll try to compromise one of your sisters. Be more careful than ever, try to think of the worst he could do, and then what’s even worse than that.”
“You want me to be a soldier, to approach this season as a military campaign. I can warn my sisters, and I’ll be careful.”
Megan would also be homesick, for this man, for his company, for his kisses.
Beyond the wall, the steady clip-clop of hooves sounded in the alley, nearer and nearer.
“Then good-bye, Miss Meggie, and God keep you.” He smoothed his hand slowly over her hair, a tender caress that wasn’t nearly as presuming as Megan would have preferred.
“You won’t allow me to give you even the smallest boon?” she pressed. “I feel as if I ought to tie a ribbon to your sleeve at least. You’ve been a friend, an ally, and a confidant. I will be in your debt always, and you’re simply riding off, never to be seen again, when but for you, I might never—”
He cupped her cheek against the warmth of his palm. “You’ll have me in tears, Miss Meggie. Good-bye.”
He drew her closer and touched his lips to hers.
Hamish stole a kiss, of parting, of rejoicing, of thanks. Megan was safe now, and he’d send along a note to one of her cousins—Rosecroft or Keswick—warning them of the threat Pilkington might pose. Hamish would add Colin to her honor guard; Megan would alert her sisters, and soon, she’d be beyond Sir Fletcher’s schemes.
Sir Fletcher had the combination of characteristics that made for competent line officers. He was smart and lazy. What he couldn’t delegate, he’d dodge, and when it became clear that further troubling Megan Windham was more risk than reward, he’d find other quarry to pursue.
Megan was safe. Hamish’s heart, however, was not whole. He’d leave a piece of it in her keeping, for what woman ever—for any reason—had thrown herself into his arms, and wept on his shoulder, as if he alone held her trust?
So his kiss bore an element of regret, that he’d not met Megan before war had stolen his innocence, and left him incapable of maneuvers among the very people Megan called family.
That regret somehow shifted closer to passion, to a yearning for what could not be. He gathered Megan in his arms, as if he’d imprint the feel of her on his memory, and to hell with gentlemanly everything. For one moment, for the duration of one kiss, Hamish could admit that he craved this woman every way a man longed for his heart mate.
When she should have stepped back, Megan wrapped herself close to Hamish in a manner that had nothing of parting and everything of welcome about it. She got him by the hair, tucked a leg between his knees, and—God have mercy upon a poor soldier—where was Hamish’s sporran when disaster threatened?
“Meggie, you mustn’t—”
“Don’t go,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please don’t ride away, as if—”
As if her tongue weren’t besieging the stout walls of Hamish’s best intentions. As if her breasts weren’t softly crushing the breath from Hamish’s common sense and self-restraint. As if every particle of him wasn’t clamoring to toss her into his saddle, and reave her from beneath the noses of—
She slid a hand around his hip, and gave Hamish a gentle squeeze on a part of him that had recently acquired a large purple bruise.
The pain was a welcome recall to common sense. Hamish ended the kiss, but remained in a loose embrace with the woman who’d haunt him clear back to the Highlands.
“Meggie, I’ll never fit in here. I’m followed by gossip and rumor everywhere I go. I nearly struck Keswick in public for no reason, and that’s not the worst of it. You don’t truly know me, which is for the best. Burn the letters, and think of me fondly, but I must go.”
She pressed her forehead to the middle of his chest. “I know you. I know the parts of you that matter, and I’ll never forget you. I’ll look after Edana and Rhona, and I’ll look after Colin, but it will be a long, long time before I stop looking for you to enter the ba
llrooms with them or come calling at their side.”
A mutual haunting, then. Hamish pressed his mouth to hers one more time when he should have made the parting real. He was on the verge of that very display of heroism when the garden gate swung open, and the Duke of Moreland stood before them, one hand braced on the gate, his hat in the other.
A moment of silence passed, but neither Megan nor Hamish stepped back, for they were wedged beneath the arch of the doorway in the garden wall.
“If it isn’t Murdoch and my own dear Megan,” Moreland said. “Megan, perhaps you’d be good enough to tell your parents I’ve come to call? Murdoch, don’t look so hopeful. You aren’t going anywhere until I’ve had a private word with you.”
Chapter Ten
The Code Duello was cited in officers’ messes, gentlemen’s clubs, bordellos, and every masculine venue in between. Wellington had taken part in duels, and Percival Windham, duke, former cavalry officer, and father to five sons, had seen more than his share of the field of honor.
He’d also seen every one of his children happily wed, and knew that what looked like dishonorable behavior to a doting uncle might be a harbinger of true love—or disaster.
Murdoch was a duke, however, and the trouble with dukes was that they required respectful, delicate, but firm handling—Percival’s own duchess had assured him of this—and one crossed a duke at considerable peril.
Especially a duke in love.
“Has a custom sprung up in Scotland,” Percival began, “of accosting young ladies in their own gardens and making spectacles of them with passionate overtures? Is this an accepted practice where you come from, Murdoch, when no understanding has been established with the young lady or her family?”
Murdoch assumed the posture of an officer at attention, his gaze unnervingly flat. “I do apologize, Your Grace. My behavior was inappropriate and ungentlemanly. I meant the young lady no disrespect, nor will I ever.”
As stirring declarations went, that would do nicely, but what had Murdoch truly been about?
Moreover, what would Percival’s duchess make of those gruff admissions? They were the right admissions—heartfelt apology, acceptance of all responsibility, assurance of future good conduct—and offered with convincing probity, but the nuances, like the Scot’s gaze, bore an impenetrable quality.
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