Page 13 of Rogue with a Brogue
“Ye know Laird Glengask gave me leave to hire ye a valet.” He scowled. “I’m certain that Ginger fellow valeting fer the marquis knows some others like himself.”
Arran grinned. “I’ll manage. And ye may as well get accustomed to Edward Ginger. We’ll have Lady Charlotte in the hoose, and ye can nae have only one Sasannach. They multiply, like toadstools.”
The old soldier laughed, then abruptly glanced behind him and sobered again. “I’ll see the coach readied then, m’laird.”
“Thank ye, Owen,” Ranulf’s voice came, and the butler fled. As Arran cursed beneath his breath, the marquis stopped in the bedchamber doorway. “Toadstools, are they?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.
“Ye ken that I still have behind me twenty-seven years of hating everyone south of Hadrian’s Wall, do ye nae? Whatever happened to change yer mind hasnae happened to me.” There. He was damned tired of walking about on eggshells where Charlotte Hanover was concerned.
Ranulf stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. “I’m nae asking ye to love the Sasannach. I’m telling ye that Charlotte is now a MacLawry, and so are her parents and her sister. Ye’ll treat them as such. And if ye dunnae like that, ye’ll still behave in a way that nae gives any of them—or me—any idea of that fact. Is that understood?”
He’d be a fool to disagree. “Aye,” he said aloud. “The Hanovers are a part of clan MacLawry. And so will the Stewarts be, I assume.”
“They make sense fer us, especially with Fendarrow going after the MacAllisters.”
“I ken, Ran. I dunnae like it one damned bit, but I ken.”
With a nod, his brother pulled open the door again, then hesitated and shut it more quietly. “I rely on yer counsel, Arran. Dunnae let me down. The times… everything is moving forward fast as the wind. We need to understand that, and to make the changes that help us survive.”
Evidently one of these changes was Ran falling for an English lass, while him dancing with a Campbell lass was not ever going to be acceptable. It all seemed hypocritical in the extreme, but Arran inclined his head. “As ye say, Ran.”
His brother didn’t look convinced. “I never know what’s rattling aboot in that clever head of yers, but fer my sake, know Charlotte better before ye decide she willnae do fer me. Ye’ve only been here a few weeks.”
That, at least, seemed fair. “I said I would, Ran, and so I will.”
“Good.” The marquis opened the door again. “Get yerself dressed, then. I expect ye’re the only one who’ll enjoyHamlettonight, anyway. Damned Danes.”
It was clearly meant to be a jest, so Arran forced a grin. Once Ranulf left, he dropped the expression. He’d always,alwayssupported his brother and his vision for the clan. Schools, farms, mercantile to be sold to Highlanders who’d been pushed off their lands all the way to America—it had all been about bettering the clan and staying out from under the thumb of the English.
Their own mother had been English, and she’d swallowed poison rather than live on in the Highlands with four children. For years after that they’d never even mentioned her; to this day Ranulf referred to her as Eleanor rather than as his mother. The rest of them followed suit.
And now Ran had changed the rules because it suited him to do so. That was his prerogative as the clan’s chief. But it served to make Arran feel not a whit of guilt about going to luncheon with Mary Campbell tomorrow, and not telling another soul about it.
Chapter Four
“Were your parents furious?” Elizabeth Bell whispered, sitting beside Mary and taking her hand. Behind them two sets of parents chatted, evidently highly amused that their daughters had claimed the front seats of the box—as if they hadn’t been encouraged to sit there all along. They couldn’t show well from the dark rear of the theater box, after all.
“Yes,” Mary returned in the same tone, and sighed as she tried to push back against her increasing cynicism. Whatever was wrong with her, she wasn’t certain she liked it. “I explained that Lord Arran surprised me and that I was trying to avoid a scene, but they still wanted to yell.”
“You can hardly blame them. What if your cousin Charles had realized with whom you were waltzing?”
She’d thought about that, actually, and in a brawl she wasn’t certain which of the two men would have emerged victorious. Charles had a certain sharp meanness about him, but Arran MacLawry seemed very… capable. And extremely confident. Or at least he’d been so both last night and this morning.
Not even Liz knew about him accompanying her to the milliner’s, though, and she’d sworn Crawford to secrecy. Because while he’d surprised her with his presence twice now, she could easily have declined to spend time with him this morning. And she couldn’t explain at all why she’d agreed to meet him yet again tomorrow.
“I told you crimson was your color,” Elizabeth pointed out, gesturing at the heavy, embroidered silk gown Mary had chosen to wear tonight. “You look very dramatic.”
“Thank you. Mother thinks it makes me look forward, but as no one’s allowed near me without a half-dozen people’s approval, that hardly signifies.” And aside from that, the gown made her feel decadent. If she was to be forced to wed Lord Delaveer, she wasn’t likely to have another chance to indulge herself.
Liz giggled. “No wonder everyone’s in a panic about you running across Lord Arran, then. He couldn’t possibly be on the approved list.”
Yes, they were in a panic, and that was why she’d done her best to be tolerant of it. If not for the niggling thought that her family was more concerned that she’d done something scandalous than they were worried she’d been in danger, she would likely have been a great deal more understanding. Of course the clan came first—but she was part of the clan, for heaven’s sake. Why had she been chosen as the Campbell sacrifice? Because her grandfather didn’t think she was a drooling half-wit like he did most of his other grandchildren?
Elizabeth squeezed her hand, shaking her back to the present. “Oh, look! The Duke and Duchess of Greaves. I didn’t even know they were in Town. And the Earl of Westfall. The new one. It was so sad that his brother was killed in that silly duel.”
Mary sat forward, looking across the theater at the opposite row of boxes. Since Greaves had married a commoner, he and his wife spent most of their time in York. Sophia Baswich had flaming red hair and a reputation for speaking her mind, and she’d reportedly once worked at The Tantalus Club—a gambling club for gentlemen and staffed solely by females. Mary wondered how in the world the two of them had managed not only to meet and to fall in love, but to have the courage to marry. Even with half the theater staring at them, they looked happy, sitting close to each other, her arm tucked around his.
As she looked at the rest of the boxes, her breath caught. In the fourth box from the stage the Marquis of Glengask stood greeting the pretty blond woman she knew to be Lady Charlotte Hanover. Mary didn’t know her well—she was four years younger than the earl’s daughter, after all—but to marry Lord Glengask, the chief of clan MacLawry, seemed exceedingly daunting.
