Page 31 of Rogue with a Brogue
So she would be spending the day being reminded of her ancestry and her duty and the history of the clan’s rivalry with the MacLawrys. Or perhaps he’d managed to convince Roderick that the truce, more rickety or not, remained, and that the Campbells and MacAllisters still had an alliance. She frowned. Roderick. Yes, he was likely waiting for her just downstairs. After she’d kissed and chatted with Arran. A life of dull and mild, with a hundred might-have-beens up in the attic where she could dwell on them endlessly.
Even with all that, though, she couldn’t regret meeting Arran. Without him she would have missed a handful of the most interesting conversations of her life. She would have missed the sensation that her feet weren’t quite touching the ground when he smiled at her. She would have missed knowing him—and that would have been a tragedy even greater than the one currently opened at her feet.
“Oh, you have a letter,” Crawford exclaimed, making her jump. The maid produced a crisply folded missive from her pocket and handed it over. “I nearly forgot, with all the goings-on this morning.”
Mary frowned as she turned it over. “‘Lady Joan Crane,’” she read aloud, not recognizing the name. The address was a respectable one on Reeves’s Mews, so with a shrug she broke the wax seal and unfolded the note.
“Dear Lady Mary,” she read to herself. “Though we aren’t well acquainted, I would very much appreciate knowing that you are well. If for any reason you find your present circumstances untenable, please feel free to inform me.”
What the devil was this?She opened the last fold of the short note, and a small scrap of yellow and white muslin fell to the floor.
Heat and understanding jolted through her. Swiftly she bent down to retrieve the scrap, and curled her fingers hard around it. Arran had kept this, from that morning at the hat shop. She hadn’t even realized. And he’d managed to find a way to contact her. He was still thinking about her, still concerned about her—just as she was about him.
Almost immediately the chill of reality swept in to drive the warmth of those thoughts away. Because able to contact her or not, he was still a MacLawry. He was still leaving for Scotland by sunset, and she still had Roderick MacAllister awaiting her downstairs. And so she would write him via this Lady Joan, and tell him that she was well, that she wished… that she wishedhimwell, and that this—whatever it might have become—was over.
Once Crawford finished pinning up her hair, Mary put the note and the scrap of muslin in the drawer of her writing desk and went downstairs to be lectured.
In the breakfast room doorway, though, she stopped dead. Her parents sat in their usual places, their expressions as grim and somber as she’d expected. But the reason she couldn’t catch her breath was seated inherusual spot at her father’s right elbow. And it wasn’t Lord Delaveer.
“Good morning, Mary,” Charles Calder said with a smile.
The fact that he was smiling when he should have been plotting revenge against the blackguard MacLawrys horrified her. Because she could only think of one thing that would make him smile this morning. The MacAllisters had fled the alliance, after all.
“Have a seat, Mary,” her father said flatly. “We have some things to discuss.”
Chapter Eight
“Dunnae bother, Winnie. His mind’s made up.” Arran threw the new pair of Hessian boots he’d acquired into the traveling trunk along with the ridiculous beaver hat the Sasannach required their men to wear out of doors.
He’d arrived in London four weeks ago in such a hurry that he hadn’t packed anything but a clean shirt. Everything going into the trunk now had been purchased here. More than likely he’d never need any of it again, but perhaps the church in An Soadh could make use of the clothes if they ever put on an English play.
“But he’s arranging his wedding,” his sister countered, tears skittering down her cheeks. “We’ll all be heading home in a few weeks. Ran would be better off with you here.”
Arran held up a small porcelain fox that had somehow found its way onto his dressing table. “Is this from ye, or Ranulf?” he asked.
“Me.”
“Thank ye, then.” He wound it into the small pile of cravats he’d also acquired, then tucked it into one corner of the trunk.
“Couldn’t you simply apologize?” Rowena insisted. “Tell him you were spying on the Campbells for us, to see if they truly mean to honor the truce.”
He shook his head, setting aside the thought that he’d considered telling that very lie just so he would have an excuse to be seen in Mary’s company. If that tale had ever had its moment, it had now passed. “Nae,piuthar. It’s only Ranulf who can decide to make peace with an enemy because he wants a woman. The rest of us wed who and when we’re told. So watch yourself, Rowena. I hear the Cameron has an unmarried son. And he’s naught but fifty-seven, only twenty-nine years yer senior.”
“You shouldn’t say such things, Arran. Especially about Charlotte. And the Hanovers are very nice, too.”
“Aye, they are. And I have no quarrel over a friendship with the Hanovers. It’s Glengask shaking hands with all the Sasannach and all the Scots who’ve fled the Highlands that grinds my teeth. But he can do as he wishes. I cannae, obviously.”
“This is ridiculous!” she argued, stomping one foot. “Just talk to him! We are family. We don’t send each other away.”
“Ye have that wrong, Winnie,” Arran returned, waiting until his sister’s back was turned before he slipped a pistol into the pocket of his hanging jacket and set the other one into the trunk. However he felt about Mary, he was not popular with the Campbells at the best of times. By now the lot of them were likely frothing at the mouth to be after him. “Ran banished Uncle Myles fer three years fer being pleasant to the Donnellys.”
“Because it ended with Bear being shot. This isn’t the same. And he forgave Uncle Myles.”
“Aye, he did. The moment Ranulf needed him to navigate through the Sasannach.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “So you’re just leaving London. You’re running away like a scalded dog.”
Arran walked around his bed and sat on the edge of it to face his sister. “Whatever anyone thinks, I dunnae want trouble with the Campbells. I didnae intend fer this to happen. So aye, I’m leaving. Like a scalded dog.”
