Scottish Brides (22 page)

Living in a leafy, bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Stephanie divides her free time between her husband, two teenage daughters, and an affable idiot of a hound. She also enjoys gardening and needlework.

She welcomes readers' comments. Letters can be sent c/o the Publicity Department, Avon Books, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299, or via e-mail at
www.stephanielaurens.com

Gretna Greene

 

 

 

 

Julia Quinn

One

 

 

 

Gretna Green, Scotland

 

1804

 

Margaret Pennypacker had chased her brother half-way
across a nation.

She had ridden like the very devil through Lancashire, discovering when she dismounted that she possessed muscles she didn't even know existed—and that every one of them was bone-sore.

She had squeezed herself into an overcrowded hired coach in Cumbria and tried not to breathe when she realized that her fellow passengers apparently did not share her fond-ness for bathing.

She had endured the bumps and jolts of a mule-drawn wooden cart as it made its way across the last five miles of English soil before she was unceremoniously dropped at the Scottish border by a farmer who warned her that she was entering the devil's own country.

All to end up here, at Gretna Green, wet and tired, with little more than the coat on her back and two coins in her pocket. Because—

In Lancashire, she'd been thrown from her horse when it stepped on a stone, and then the dratted thing—so well-trained by her errant brother—had turned and run for home.

On the Cumbria coach, someone had had the temerity to steal her reticule, leaving her with only the coins that had slipped out and settled into the deepest recesses of her pocket.

And on that last leg of the journey, while riding in the farmer's cart that had given her splinters, bruises, and probably—with the way her luck was running—some sort of chicken disease, it had started to rain.

Margaret Pennypacker was definitely not in good temper. And when she found her brother, she was going to
kill
him.

It had to be the cruelest sort of irony, but neither thieves nor storms nor runaway horses had managed to deprive her of the sheet of paper that had forced her journey to Scotland. Edward's sparsely worded missive hardly deserved a rereading, but Margaret was so furious with him that she couldn't stop her fingers from reaching into her pocket for the hundredth time and pulling out the crumpled, hastily scrawled note.

It had been folded and refolded, and it was probably getting wet as she huddled under the overhang of a building, but the message was still clear, Edward was eloping.

“Bloody idiot,” Margaret muttered under her breath. “And who the devil is he marrying, I'd like to know. Couldn't he have seen fit to have told me
that?”

As best as Margaret could guess, there were three likely candidates, and she wasn't looking forward to welcoming any of them into the Pennypacker family. Annabel Fornby was a hideous snob, Camilla Ferrige had no sense of humor, and Penelope Fitch was as dumb as a post. Margaret had once heard Penelope recite the alphabet and leave out
J
and
Q.

All she could hope was that she wasn't too late. Edward Pennypacker was not getting married—not if his older sister had any say in the matter.

 

Angus Greene was a strong, powerful man, widely reputed to be handsome as sin, and with a devilishly charming smile that belied an occasionally ferocious temper. When he rode his prized stallion into a new town, he tended to elicit fear among the men, rapid heartbeats among the women, and wide-eyed fascination among the children—who always seemed to notice that both man and beast shared the same black hair and piercing dark eyes.

His arrival in Gretna Green, however, caused no comment at all, because everyone with a lick of sense—and Angus liked to think that the one virtue common to all Scots was sense—was inside that night, bundled up and warm, and, most importantly, out of the driving rain.

But not Angus. No, Angus was—thanks to his exasperating younger sister, whom he was beginning to think might be the only Scot since the dawn of time to be completely de-void of common sense—stuck out here in the hard rain, shivering and cold, and establishing what had to be a new national record for the greatest use of the words “damn,” “bloody,” and “bugger” in a single evening.

He'd hoped to get farther than the border this evening, but the rain was slowing him down, and even with gloves, his fingers were too cold to properly grip the reins. Plus, it wasn't fair to Orpheus; he was a good horse and didn't deserve this sort of abuse. This was yet another transgression for which Anne would have to take the blame, Angus thought grimly. He didn't care if his sister was only eighteen years old. When he found that girl, he was going to
kill
her.

He took some comfort in the fact that if he had been slowed down by the weather, then Anne would have been forced to a complete stop. She was traveling by carriage—
his
carriage, which she'd had the temerity to “borrow”—and would certainly be unable to move southward with the roads muddied and clogged.

And if there was any luck floating about in the damp air, Anne might even be stranded here, at Gretna Green. As a possibility, it was fairly remote, but as long as he was stuck for the night, it seemed foolish not to look for her.

He let out a weary sigh and wiped his wet face with the back of his sleeve. It didn't do any good, of course; his coat was already completely sodden.

At his master's loud exhale, Orpheus instinctively drew to a halt, waiting for the next command. Trouble was, Angus hadn't a clue what to do next. He supposed he could start by searching the inns, although truth be told, he didn't much relish the thought of going through every room in every inn in town. He didn't even want to think about how many innkeepers he was going to have to bribe.

But first things had to come first, and he might as well get himself settled before beginning his search. A quick scan up the street told him that The Canny Man possessed the best quarters for his horse, so Angus spurred Orpheus in the direction of the small inn and public house.

But before Orpheus had managed to move even three of his four feet, a loud scream pierced the air.

A feminine scream.

Angus's heart stopped beating. Anne? If anyone had touched so much as the hem of her dress . . .

He galloped down the street and then around the far corner, just in time to see three men attempting to drag a lady into a dark building. She was struggling mightily, and from the amount of mud on her dress, it looked as if she had been dragged a fair distance.

“Let go of me, you cretin!” she yelled, elbowing one of them in the neck.

It wasn't Anne, that was for sure. Anne would never have known enough to knee the second man in the groin.

Angus jumped down and dashed to the lady's aid, arriving just in time to grab the third villain by the collar, pull him off of his intended victim, and toss him headfirst into the street.

“Back off, sod!” one of the men growled. “We found her first.”

“That is unfortunate,” Angus said calmly, then bashed his fist into the man's face. He stared at the two remaining men, one of whom was still sprawled in the street. The other one, who had been doubled over on the ground and clutching at his nether regions ever since the lady had kneed him, looked at Angus as if he wanted to say something. But before he could make a sound, Angus planted his boot in a rather painful area and looked down.

“There is something you should know about me,” he said, his voice unnaturally soft. “I don't like to see women hurt. When it happens, or even when I think it
might
happen, I—” He stopped talking for a moment and cocked his head slowly to the side, pretending to search for the right words. “I go a wee bit mad.”

The man sprawled on the cobbles found his feet with remarkable speed and ran off into the night. His companion looked as if he dearly wanted to follow, but Angus's boot had him a bit too securely pinned to the ground.

Angus stroked his chin. “I think we understand each other.”

The man nodded frantically.

“Good. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what will happen should we ever again cross paths.”

Another pained nod.

Angus moved his foot and the man ran off, squealing all the way.

With the threat finally removed—the third villain, after all, was still unconscious—Angus finally turned his attention to the young lady he had possibly saved from a fate worse than death. She was still sitting on the cobbles, staring up at him as if he were a ghost. Her hair was wet and sticking to her face, but even in the dim light shining from the nearby buildings, he could tell that it was some sort of shade of brown. Her eyes were light in color, and utterly huge and unblinking. And her lips—well, they were blue from the cold, and shivering to boot, so they really shouldn't have been so appealing, but Angus found himself instinctively moving toward her, and he had the oddest notion that if he kissed her . . .

He gave his head a little shake. “Idiot,” he muttered. He was here to find Anne, not dally with some misplaced young Englishwoman. And speaking of which, what the devil was she doing here, anyway, alone on a darkened street?

He leveled his sternest stare at her. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, then added for good measure, “Alone on a darkened street?”

Her eyes, which he thought couldn't possible get any more huge, widened, and she started to scoot away, her bottom skimming along the ground as she used the palms of her hands to support her. Angus thought she looked a bit like a monkey he'd seen in a menagerie.

“Don't tell me you're frightened of
me
,” he said incredulously.

Her shaking lips managed something that could never be called a smile, although Angus had the distinct impression that she was trying to placate him. “Not at all,” she quavered, her accent confirming his earlier supposition that she was English. “It's just that I—well, you must understand—” She stood so suddenly that her foot caught on the hem of her dress, and she nearly fell over. “I really have someplace I have to be,” she blurted out.

And then, with a wary glance in his direction, she started walking away, moving sideways so that she could keep one eye on him and one on wherever it was she thought she was going.

“For the love of—” He cut himself off before he blasphemed in front of this chit, who was already looking at him as if she were trying to decide whether he more resembled the devil or Attila the Hun. “I am not the villain in this piece,” he bit off.

Margaret clutched at the folds of her skirt and chewed nervously on the inside of her cheek. She had been terrified when those men had grabbed her, and she still hadn't managed to stop the uncontrollable shaking of her hands. At four-and-twenty, she was still an innocent, but she'd lived long enough to know their intentions. The man standing in front of her had saved her, but for what purpose? She didn't think he wanted to hurt her—his comment about protecting women was a bit too heartfelt to have been an act. But did that mean she could trust him?

As if sensing her thoughts, he snorted and jerked his head slightly. “For the love of God, woman, I saved your bloody life.”

Margaret winced. The big Scotsman was probably correct, and she knew her deceased mother would have ordered her to get down on her hands and knees just to thank him, but the truth was—he looked a little unbalanced. His eyes were hot and flashing with temper, and there was something about him—something strange and indescribable—that made her insides quiver.

But she wasn't a coward, and she had spent enough years trying to instill good manners in her younger siblings that she wasn't about to prove herself a hypocrite and behave rudely herself. “Thank you,” she said quickly, her racing heart causing her words to tumble from her mouth. “That was
. . .
uh . . . very well done of you, and I . . . thank you, and I believe I can speak for my family when I say that they also thank you, and I'm certain that if I ever found myself wed, my husband would thank you as well.”