Amanda Scott (3 page)

“Then I won’t marry a nobleman,” Pinkie said. “In fact, I don’t think I want to marry at all. I have never met anyone who was half the man that you are, or Himself, or half the man my ghost is, for that matter.”

Chuff smiled and shook his head, giving her hands a light squeeze before he released one and drew the other through the crook of his arm. “You’ll marry, Pinkie lass. You’re far too bonnie to remain single. I just didn’t want you going to London unarmed, so to speak. The last thing you want is to fall in love with someone who will cast you off because he suddenly learns the truth and thinks your parents make you unsuitable to marry him.”

“I’d never fall in love with such an arrogant man,” she said stoutly.

“I don’t think love is so predictable,” he told her.

“Piffle, I know exactly what sort of man I could love, and that sort isn’t it, definitely.”

“You don’t even know any eligible men,” Chuff said with a chuckle. “The only male I’ve heard you talk about besides Duncan or myself and a few kinsmen is that ghost of yours, and you don’t have any way of knowing what sort of man he was, or even if he ever existed outside your imagination.”

“I do, too, know,” she said fiercely. “I know exactly what he’s like. He has all the virtues I admire and none of the faults I detest.”

“And he rides a white horse, too, I’ll wager, and rescues fair maidens from fire-breathing dragons! Well, it doesn’t matter if he does do all that. You can’t fall in love with a ghost, Pinkie, and no mere man could ever be that perfect.”

“Don’t be absurd, Chuff. I haven’t fallen in love with a ghost, and he doesn’t ride a white horse. Come to think of it, though, he does own a magnificent deerhound that walks like a shadow at his side.”

He looked at her in surprise. “A deerhound?”

“Aye, and so my ghost, dear brother, is a Highlander, and at least an earl or the chief of his clan, because no one of lesser rank is allowed to own deerhounds.”

Chuff’s eyes were twinkling again. “Just so you’re truly not in love with this paragon, lass.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said firmly, “and I know that men are not perfect, sir. When I said he had all of the virtues I seek and none of the faults I detest, I meant only that and no more. I shall be able to overlook what faults he has if I love him. Just as I overlook yours,” she added sweetly.

He chuckled. “We’d best be getting back now, lass. Himself and the men have reached the Dunraven dock, so he will be looking for me soon, and I see Mary and the bairns on the hillside, waving.” Chuff waved back.

Pinkie waved, too. Her lovely holiday was over, but she enjoyed the children and looked forward to hearing about their day. They would be going to London, too, which was why Roddy stood there on the hillside, waving, with his mother and younger sisters, instead of being away at school.

His father had said he was old enough, at ten, to go to Edinburgh, but Mary had said he would learn more by traveling to London than by pining away at school, wishing he were with them. Himself had not approved, but although no one else could change his mind once he’d made it up, Mary could, and so Roddy was going, and his father would hire a tutor when they got there. Pinkie thought Roddy was more excited about going than anyone else was. As for herself, she resolved to savor each day she had left in the Highlands, because if Chuff was right to worry, then London might prove to be even worse than she expected.

Mingary Castle

The West Highland Coast

A Fortnight Later

“E
VEN WORSE THAN I
thought,” the Earl of Kintyre muttered to himself as he stared glumly at the last page of the accounts his steward had set before him earlier that chilly spring afternoon.

At the sound of his voice, the large dark gray dog that lay curled near the tall, paneled doors separating the bookroom from the great hall opened its liquid, dark brown eyes and lifted its furry head. Its warm, steady gaze looked sympathetic enough to draw a smile from its master.

“Staring at these numbers doesn’t make them look any better, Cailean,” the earl said. “I had hoped we might buy sheep, even though introducing collies to your domain might strain your family’s dignity a wee bit. Unfortunately, I’d have to cut down the forests to accommodate the sheep’s grazing needs, and that would play right into Campbell’s hands. I cannot bring myself to do it. Not yet, at all events.”

With a sigh, he picked up a letter near his hand on the desk. He had already read the thing twice since the runner had brought it. A third reading was not likely to alter the words or the arrogant scrawl in which they were written. Reading it was like probing a sore tooth. It hurt, but one kept doing it anyway.

The moment he moved, the dog’s tail began thumping against the wood floor, and the earl allowed himself a moment to gaze in simple pleasure at the elegant creature. Then the tail fell silent, and Cailean’s ears lifted.

Small for the dog’s great size, they sat high on its broad, flat, tapering skull. In repose, they folded back like a greyhound’s, but now they cocked forward alertly, their drooping tips silvery where light from a nearby window touched them. The main part of each ear was glossy black, darker than the rest of the dog—except for the tip of its nose—and felt as soft as a mouse’s coat when stroked.

The earl thought at first that Cailean was responding to his movements and voice, but then the dog turned its head toward the door, and he heard what it had heard much sooner, a rapid clicking of heels on the stone floor of the great hall. A moment later, the door swung back on its hinges, and his sister entered the room.

Even to her brother’s critical eye, Lady Bridget Mingary, at sixteen, was beautiful. Her long black curls, unconfined by any cap, looked as soft and as shiny as the large blue satin bow into which she had confined a bunch of them at the back of her head.

Her round face and large, almost circular, dark blue eyes gave her a baby-faced look. Her tip-tilted nose was small, neat, and adorable; and her full, pouty lips and round cheeks owed their deep rosy color to nature rather than to rouge. Her chin, too, was softly rounded, and her smile, when she chose to display it, was wide and revealed small, even, sparkling white teeth.

Bridget’s body was all gentle curves from her full, plump bosom to her tiny waist and flaring hips. Her hands and the neatly shod feet peeping beneath the hem of her gown as she walked were small and dainty, her fingernails neatly rounded at the ends and delicately pink. Her skin was rosy and smooth, without a blemish. She would undoubtedly grow plumper with age and look more like Michael remembered their mother looking, but at present, she was undeniably lovely. Unless, of course, one considered her temperament.

As she strode into the room, the dog rose with graceful dignity tinged by wariness to watch her.

Lady Bridget said sharply, “Stay, Cailean! Don’t touch my gown. Michael, do you like this dress? You’d better. It is the only silk one I own.”

He repressed a surge of irritation, knowing full well that she did not care what he thought of the green-and-white-striped gown she wore, although its overdress, opening as it did in a vee down the low, square-necked bodice and falling away at her impossibly narrow waist to expose an underdress of sunshine-yellow satin, was extremely becoming. Exerting himself to sound more patient than he felt, he said, “You cannot have a new dress, Bridget. I’m sorry, but I thought I explained my reasons clearly the last time you asked me.”

“Michael, you’ve simply got to be reasonable. I’ve written to Aunt Marsali, as you know, for you gave my letter to Mr. Cameron yourself before he left to visit his brother in Edinburgh. In any event, you did not say that I must not write to her.”

“Why on earth would I forbid you to write to our aunt?”

“Well, you didn’t, that’s all, and you must have known that I would be asking her to take me to parties this spring, for she promised that she would do so when I grew old enough, and I have decided that I am, so I simply must go to Edinburgh this year.”

“Bridget, we have had this conversation too many times. Even if I agreed that you are old enough, which I do not, I cannot afford to send you to Edinburgh.”

Her lovely eyes welled with tears. “But how will I ever get married if I never meet anyone? You never think about me, Michael. You think only about your stupid dogs and this horrid, drafty, decrepit old castle, and never, never about me!”

Her voice had risen alarmingly, and he spoke quietly in an effort to calm her. “I do think about you all the time,” he said, “but it is my duty as chief of our clan to think about all our people, and about Mingary.”

She stamped one small foot. “But what about
me
?”

He remembered the letter. “I received another offer for your hand.”

Her neatly arched eyebrows snapped together in a scowl. “Another one? Dare I ask if this one, like all the others, comes from Sir Renfrew Campbell?”

“It does,” he said evenly.

“I am surprised that you do not simply order me to marry him,” she snapped. “You would then be rid of me, at all events.”

Goaded, he said, “He wants my forests still, for his damned bloomery.”

Her chin rose. “You should not use such language in my presence, sir.”

Her sudden hauteur nearly made him smile. He said, “You are quite right. I should not. I beg your pardon.”

She grimaced, tossing her head. Then, looking at him more narrowly, her voice laced with suspicion, she said, “You are not begging my pardon because you mean to make me marry that horrid creature, are you?”

He sighed. “No, Bridget, I will not make you marry him.”

“Good, because he is horrid and cruel, not to mention old enough to be our father. I daresay that, if the truth were known, he murdered his first wife.”

“He did no such thing, and I hope you have not spouted such gibberish to all and sundry,” Michael said curtly.

She shrugged.

“Look here, Bridget, you know that I owe Campbell a good deal of money, do you not?”

“It is not your debt,” she said, tossing her head again. “Everyone knows that it was Papa who borrowed that money from him. I do not see why you should have to pay him a penny. When Papa died, by rights the debt should have died with him.”

“You know that is not how such things work. I inherited our father’s debts just as surely as I inherited Mingary. It is my lawful duty to repay Campbell in full.” He did not add that he had no notion of how he was going to do so.

“Then pay it,” she snapped. “I am sure it is no concern of mine, Michael, and I find it quite tediously boring always to be hearing how poor we are. You have said that Sir Renfrew wants the forests. Why do you not just sell them to him?”

“Because I do not want him to burn them if there is any way to save them,” he said. “Already quite half of the Highland forests are gone, and in any case, he is willing to forgive only half of the debt in return for them.”

“Then
tell
him he must forgive the
whole
debt,” she said, flinging her arms wide. “Really, Michael, that seems quite ridiculously simple to me. Indeed, if you were at all wise about such things, you would tell him that he can have only half the forestlands as payment for the whole debt, and then make him pay good Scots silver for the rest of what he wants. If you did that, sir, I could go to Edinburgh for weeks and weeks and wear lots of pretty dresses.”

“Bridget, even you must see that I cannot force him to accept my valuation of the forests or the land. I have only until the third anniversary of our father’s death to repay the debt, and I cannot demand terms of him that he is unwilling to grant.”

“The third anniversary!” Her eyes grew wide. “But it will be three years on the first of June, Michael. That’s less than two months away.”

“Yes, I know. So you see—”

“You will just have to sell the dogs,” she said flatly.

“Even if I could do that—”

“But why can’t you? You are forever telling me how extremely valuable they are, that at one time a single leash of deerhounds was the fine whereby a noble lord condemned to death might purchase his reprieve! You just don’t want to sell them, Michael. You care more for your dogs than you do for me!”

Coldly, Michael said, “If I do, it is because they are better behaved.” He was sorry for the words, however, the instant they left his mouth.

Bridget’s generous bosom swelled with indignation. “How dare you say such a horrid thing!”

“I should not have said it, but it is very often true, Bridget, and if you want to find a gentleman willing to marry you one day, you must learn to think occasionally of someone other than yourself.”

“I do think of others! At least, I would if I ever saw anyone else to think about. But thanks to you, I never do. I am stuck here in this horrid pile of rocks for months on end, without a single, solitary person to talk to, Michael.”

“You exaggerate, my dear. There are any number of people here to talk to.”

“Oh, servants,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Not just servants,” he said, keeping his temper with difficulty. “We are surrounded by kinsmen and—”

“But not real people,” she said. “Not people of our own class, Michael, and if you think for one minute that having rejected Sir Renfrew Campbell I am going to marry one of our tenants, when you are forever telling me that they cannot even pay to rent the lands they work, like other people’s tenants do nowadays—”

“I do not mean for you to marry any of them,” he said. “When the time does come for you to marry, there is no reason that you should not marry well.”

“Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t if you would just buy me some proper clothing and let me go to Edinburgh,” she said, reverting to her original objective. “This is the best dress I own, sir, and just look at it!”

“I cannot send you to Edinburgh now. Perhaps someday, but—”

“You could if you’d sell one of your stupid dogs.”

Michael sighed. “I keep telling you that I cannot get enough money to repay the debt by selling the dogs. I have explained the law of exclusive proprietorship to you, have I not?”