He brought himself up short. Edinburgh? He could bring his sisters to London, for a real Season. Gowns from Paris, a carriage of their own, entrée to all the most fashionable and intelligent society they wanted. They would be the family of a duke-in-waiting.
Did that make his mother and sisters ladies? How thrilled Winnie would be. He must ask.
The duchess and Mr. St. James had been sparring as he sat woolgathering. Mr. St. James must have offended Her Grace again, from her tone. Drew glanced in pity at his cousin. No discipline, that one. He’d clearly never been in the army, if he thought this was the way to ingratiate himself with those who outranked him.
“This offer is intended to help you,” Her Grace said witheringly. “Do not delude yourself that Carlyle runs itself, or that a steward can be hired to do it all. You are both young men, neither raised with this expectation. It will be difficult for you to adjust, but you must rise to the occasion. I urge you to accept this proposal and take it seriously.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, Your Grace. It is extremely generous of you.”
“It is not generosity,” she snapped. “I have no wish to see Carlyle run into the ground! I wish to see it descend to someone who will appreciate its majesty, care for its dependents, and preserve it for future generations. To that purpose, each of you has six months to establish yourself as someone capable of becoming that man. And you needn’t fear that the funds would cease if I should die.” She glared at Mr. St. James again, as if guessing what he was about to ask. “I will leave instructions in my will to continue the annuity so long as my conditions are met.”
Drew had never had the freedom to be disreputable or irresponsible, though he suspected the other man had.
“What shall those conditions be, Your Grace?”
“Respectability,” she said, still looking down her nose at Mr. St. James. “No outrageous behavior. Sobriety. The Dukes of Carlyle have long held positions of power in Westminster, and you would do well to take an interest in politics so that you are prepared to acquit yourselves well when you sit in the House of Lords. If you do not, someone else will be happy to take advantage of you, sooner than later.” She paused. “And I have always felt a wife settles a man. I do not require that you marry, but the next duke will need an heir. A suitable bride is invaluable.”
“We must marry?” That jolted him out of rosy thoughts of selling out of the army and settling his family.
“The Duke of Carlyle will need an heir,” she repeated. “If you do not provide one, Captain, Mr. St. James would become the heir presumptive.”
Not bloody likely, thought Drew as he and his cousin exchanged swift, measuring glances.
“Mr. Edwards will answer any further questions.” The duchess rose to her feet, rousting a large ginger cat from beneath her chair.
He leapt up and rushed after her. “If I may, Your Grace . . .”
She looked up at him. “Yes?”
He smiled and ducked his head. She was a tiny woman, and he had learned that his height intimidated dainty females. “You spoke very deliberately about the importance of marriage.”
“Yes, Captain,” she said with a trace of impatience. “Not only does a good wife make a man more reliable and stable, she is necessary for a legitimate heir.”
“Of course,” he said hastily. “I only meant to inquire how you might suggest I proceed. As an army man, I have had few opportunities of meeting any lady who would be worthy of becoming a duchess.”
Her demeanor thawed slightly. “Yes, I see. Do you intend to remain in your post?”
Only as long as it takes to clear out of the barracks. “I don’t believe I could do justice to this new responsibility and fulfill my duties. In fact, I don’t know how I could undertake to learn anything about Carlyle from Fort George, let alone enough to assume the dukedom. I wonder if perhaps I ought to find a situation somewhere nearer?”
It had not escaped his notice, when Mr. Edwards unfurled the family document, that the current duke was nearing sixty. A man of that age, who had suffered a serious injury that rendered him incapable of marrying and siring a son, whose mother had undertaken to locate new heirs . . . This was not some vague, airy expectation. This, Carlyle Castle and the title that went with it, might well be his within a few years, even months. There was no time to lose—nor did he wish to.
The duchess’s expression warmed. “Yes, Captain, I believe that would be a fine idea. You would have Mr. Edwards to explain things, and naturally I would be here.” She eyed him up and down again. “With the right valet, you’ll be a handsome enough fellow. I daresay there are a number of ladies I might introduce to you, who would be deserving of your interest.”
Drew smiled. While he still supported his mother and three sisters on a captain’s pay, a wife and children were luxuries he couldn’t afford.
But as heir to the Duke of Carlyle, with fifteen hundred pounds per annum . . .
“I would like that very much, Your Grace,” he said.
Chapter Two
Two months later
Edinburgh was just as he remembered it. From the London road it seemed to rise up out of the earth as a kingdom on a hill, the stone houses clustered like acolytes at the foot of the castle, which surveyed the verdant plain imperiously from its perch.
Drew hadn’t been here in over a year, thanks to his posting at Fort George. On his way to Carlyle, there hadn’t been time to stop and visit his family. But now . . .
Now he had plenty of time, and vast quantities of news.
His family occupied a small house just off the High Street. It was evening, and his mother and sisters would have closed up the shop by now. But the only one home when he arrived was Annag, who had been his nurse years ago and refused to leave the family even when means grew tight. Now she was all-purpose help to his mother and sisters. “Oh, Master Andrew!” she exclaimed at his entrance. “Here you are, come at last! And about time, too. Your mother’s been fair worried.”
He laughed, embracing the short, gray-haired woman who was almost as dear to him as his own mother. “I wrote to her when I would arrive.” Though it did not surprise him to hear his mother had been fretting, hoping he would appear three days early.
She pursed up her lips. “And you sounding as English as Butcher Cumberland.”
Drew grimaced. “Aye, I’ve been in England these six weeks,” he said, slipping back into the Scots she spoke. He’d got used to speaking clipped English for the duchess.
“May you recover from it soon,” she said tartly. “None of that here, laddie!”
“No, ma’am. Where are they now?”
“At the Monroes’ for dinner. I’ll send round—”
“No, no, just tell them I’ve arrived. Tomorrow will be soon enough to talk.” He winked at her and turned toward the door.
“They’ll want all the news!” she protested, hurrying after him.
“And tomorrow they shall have it, along with the gifts I brought.” He grinned as her eyes grew wide. “Till the morrow, Annag.”
Duty satisfied, he stepped back out into the street and took a deep breath. It was not an unwelcome surprise to find them out. After a hard week of travel, to say nothing of the weeks of study and instruction at Carlyle, the prospect of a night free tasted as sweet as honey.
As eager as he was to see his family again, he had written to an old friend, begging a bed. Felix Duncan had replied as expected that he was welcome to it. Drew swung back into the saddle and took his horse to a stable before walking up the street, saddlebags over his shoulder, to Duncan’s lodgings in Burnet’s Close.
“Come in,” came a muffled bellow at his knock.
He entered to find his friend practicing feints in front of a cheval glass, pausing to adjust his stance after each stroke.
“Are you rehearsing to fight yourself?” he asked with amusement.
“If I’m to face an equal, I must.” Duncan eyed himself critically and raised his elbow to create a more e
legant line from hip to wrist.
“Very good. And if you’re ever looking to face someone better, I’m at your service.”
Duncan abandoned his posing. “Better! Not better. Only taller and with longer reach. God’s eyes, man, you’re a mountain.”
Drew obligingly flexed one arm. “The result of tedious hard labor. You might try it.”
Duncan, who had never done a day’s hard labor in his life, propped his épée on his hip and glared at him. “And will it make me taller? Lengthen my arms? I think not.”
He snorted with laughter. “Nay, you’re a hopeless cause. Doomed to be a reedy little man forever . . .”
Duncan growled and raised his sword, and Drew made a show of yawning in reply. His friend’s face eased into a lopsided grin. “For all that you’re a rude one, ’tis good to see you again, St. James. Welcome.”
“Aye,” he agreed as he clasped Duncan’s outstretched hand. “Many thanks for the use of your spare room.”
Duncan resumed his position in front of the glass. “Anytime you need it.” He raised his épée, watching himself in the mirror again. “Although you’re worse than an old woman, hinting at wondrous revelations and not telling me what brings you back to Edinburgh when you ought to be marching around Fort George in the rain.” He lunged, pausing to flick his queue of ginger hair over his shoulder and slant his eyebrows threateningly.
Drew grinned again. It was true he’d told Duncan some whopping stories when they’d been mischievous lads ducking their tutors in the labyrinth of narrow alleys in and around the Cowgate. “This time, Duncan, I’ve got a revelation so wondrous even you won’t believe it.”
He went into the spare room where his trunks had already been delivered. One of them was familiar; it held his belongings, other than the essentials in his saddlebag. The other, larger trunk was new, full of gifts and trinkets for his family, lovely frivolous things suitable for the mother and sisters of a duke.
The sight of it sobered him. It was a Trojan horse, that trunk, a lavish gift that would subtly inject the elegant, rarified world of Carlyle Castle into his family. After the way the previous duke had treated his grandfather, Drew’s family had wanted nothing to do with the castle. Now, though, they had no choice, and that trunk was meant to change their minds.
He’d written to his mother only that he appeared to have expectations from the ducal branch of the family; it had felt like hubris to write it down and send the news into the world, unfettered and liable to run amok. Mr. Edwards, the solicitor, was keeping the whole matter quiet. No one outside Carlyle Castle knew of the duchess’s plan.
At times Drew had wondered wryly if that was to make it easier to bend him and his cousin to the duchess’s will, but the solicitor claimed it was for his own sake, to spare him the intense glare of scrutiny that would fall upon the heir to the dukedom. And that meant very few people in England, and no one at all in Scotland, had any idea that the future Duke of Carlyle trod the plainstanes of Edinburgh this evening.
In truth, he still hardly believed it himself. The Carlyle inheritance seemed like a dream. Even in the midst of Mr. Edwards’s strictures or explanations of some finer point of the estate, part of him had thought it wouldn’t really be his, that some other heir would miraculously emerge at the last moment and leave Drew and his rakish cousin empty-handed. Only now that he was here, about to uproot his family and begin shouldering the burden of Carlyle, was it sinking in that it was his future. This next month would be the last of his life as Captain St. James, ordinary Scotsman and soldier.
As expected, Duncan followed him within minutes, a towel around his neck and two drams of whisky in his hand, one of which he held out. “All right, then, what is this wondrous and incredible revelation?”
For answer, Drew handed him a sealed packet. Duncan tossed back his drink and set down the glass to unfold the papers. For all his rakish ways, Duncan was a judge’s son and an advocate himself, and more intelligent than he acted.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he exclaimed a few minutes later, still reading. “Is this—is this real?”
Drew nodded, stripping off his coat and tossing it on the wingback chair near the window. He longed for a bath and wondered if Duncan would agree to a naked plunge in the Firth, as they’d used to do.
“Carlyle?” said his friend incredulously. “Carlyle? You?”
Drew gave a mocking bow. “At your service.”
After another shocked moment, Duncan put back his head and roared with laughter. “You—a duke! You—the veriest devil of a child, a peer of the realm! You—the wild Scot, a proper Englishman!”
That last made him frown. “I was not wild, and I won’t be an Englishman.”
“Oh nay, never.” Grinning fiendishly, Duncan folded the letters and tossed them back at him. “It might take a while, but you’ll become one. No more Scots for you, only King’s English. You’ll wed a pale Englishwoman and your grandchildren will never venture north of the River Tweed.”
Tight-lipped, he replaced the documents in his trunk. “That’s lunacy speaking.” Even though he’d consciously spoken crisp English at Carlyle, and all but invited the duchess to find an appropriate wife for him. Of course she would choose an English lady . . .
“Is it?” murmured Duncan with a devilish gleam in his eye. “We’ll see about that.” He left the room, and Drew went back to unpacking his things, irate at his friend for speaking such blunt truth.
Several minutes later Duncan was back, a slim book in his hand. “If you’re going to remain a Scot, you’ll need help.”
The Widower and Bachelor’s Directory, read the title. Frowning, Drew opened it, and gave a bark of disbelieving laughter as he realized what it was. “A guide to rich ladies and where to find them, eh? What rubbish is this?”
“Not rubbish,” countered Duncan, still smirking. “Invaluable intelligence for the man in search of a wife!”
“Who said I was in search of a wife?”
Duncan arched his brows. “A single man with expectation of a wealthy dukedom will be in want of a bride. And even if he’s not in want of one, he shall have one thrust upon him, whether he wills it or no. Every unwed woman between the ages of seventeen and seventy will fling herself—or be flung—into his path until one of them trips him up and drags him to church, like a wild boar caught in a snare and trundled off to market.”
“You’re the only one in Edinburgh who knows,” returned Drew, annoyed. “I’d prefer to keep it that way. If women start flinging themselves at me, I’ll know whom to blame.”
Duncan snorted. “Aye, as if I’d go about telling all the lasses you’re about to be rich beyond their dreams. ’Tis of course the only way any sensible woman would take you . . .”
“You’re about to get to practice your fencing in earnest.”
His friend waved it off as he held out the silly little book. “Keep it! I know all the eligible ladies in town already. And once word gets out that there’s a ducal heir on the loose, you’ll need to know which ones to fend off.”
Drew replied with a suggestion that would have made any soldier blush. Duncan only grinned, beyond pleased with himself. “If you’re to depart the realm of ordinary men soon, we must make your last days memorable. Let me change my coat.”
That was more amenable to his humor. He’d been at the castle for six weeks, always minding his tongue, constantly alert. A wild, carefree night was just the respite he needed.
To his relief, Duncan’s idea of memorable turned out to be much the same as it had been in years past. At an oyster cellar beneath a tavern they met up with two other old friends, Adam Monteith and William Ross, and all proceeded to gorge themselves on oysters, well lubricated with strong Scottish porter. There was nothing anywhere to match the taste of oysters from the Firth of Forth.
He had never been to this cellar. There were several in Edinburgh, and some seemed to migrate around town. The gathering was lively, packed to the walls and operating at a dull roar of laugh
ter and conversation.
At another table sat a large group of people including several ladies. They laughed and chattered with a gaiety that caught his eye, and made Drew think of his own sisters.
Well—not exactly in the same way.
Finally Ross caught him looking and nudged him. “D’you fancy her?”
There was no doubt whom Ross meant. The woman at the head of the table was mesmerizing. Not only was she one of the merriest people in the room, inciting roars of laughter at her table, but she positively glowed. Her dark hair was loosely twisted up, and her gown was a brilliant blue. It was her eyes, though, that captured his attention. Those dark eyes danced with wicked humor and glee and made him want to know what had put that sparkle there.
As if she’d heard Ross’s question, she glanced his way. Caught, he gazed boldly back, and her mouth curled in an impish yet mysterious way before she shifted her attention away from him. Drew turned back to his porter, trying to hide the flush of heat that had gone through him and set his heart racing.
Ross nudged his shoulder again, brows raised knowingly. He shrugged, and stole another glance over his shoulder.
At some point a piper set up in the corner and began to play. In an instant the tables were shoved aside and figures formed for a country dance. Duncan leapt over a table to join in, as did Monteith and Ross. Drew threw his coat in the corner with everyone else’s and took his place.
The dance was as boisterous as the interlude before it had been. Within minutes he was out of breath, laughing as he swung first one lady, then another on his arm. There was no chance of conversation, over the drone and wail of the pipes, the stomping of so many feet on the wooden floor, the shouts and laughter of the dancers and those cheering them on. It was hot and fast and exuberant, and he loved it. There had been nothing like this at Carlyle, nor at Fort George. Colonel Fitzwilliam, the old prig, disapproved of his officers attending social gatherings.
A Scot to the Heart Page 2