Page 46 of Rogue with a Brogue
“So angry spirits and I concern you.” Highlanders were a unique breed, indeed.
“Someaught like that,” he agreed, brushing his cheek against her hair.
The intimacy of the gesture warmed her to her toes—unless he was trying to distract her about something. “The men around me travel in packs, you know,” she said aloud. “Like wolves. They would never admit it, but they fear being caught out alone by a MacDonald or a MacLawry. And there you are, knowing that half a hundred Campbells could be looking for me—for us—and you’re escorting me to a dance.”
“They’d nae expect that strategy, ye have to admit,” he drawled with a swift grin. Slowly his expression sobered again. “I’ll tell ye true, Mary. I’m concerned. I’m concerned they’ll find us and drag ye back to marry Calder, and that he’ll be worse to ye because of what I’ve done. I’m afraid ye’ll listen to Crawford and nae yer own heart. And I’m terrified that when we reach the Highlands ye’ll still ask me to take ye to the Campbell and ye’ll nae choose to stay with me.” He took a breath, shrugging. “Am I afraid of the Campbells? Nae.”
A door opened a short way in front of them, light flooding the evening and the sound of music filling the air. It seemed almost symbolic. If she went inside with Arran, there would be no turning back. It meant something. It meant that she could do as he’d already done, and choose the two of them over her own clan. If she went back to the inn, then she could still claim her old life, whether or not it would include Charles Calder or Roderick MacAllister. But returning to her old life meant that she would have to accept whatever her family decided for her. And whomever her family decided she should wed.
Or she could set all that aside in favor of the utter unknown. Mary tightened her grip on Arran’s arm and stepped into the noise and joy of the assembly.
Chapter Eleven
Peter Gilling looked up from his seat in the inn’s tavern as the large woman slipped into the nearly empty common room. If he’d been a gentleman he supposed he would have stood up and invited her over for a pint, but firstly he wasn’t a gentleman, and secondly he didn’t like the way she looked down her nose at Lord Arran. The MacLawrys could trace their ancestry back before Hadrian, back to the Vikings and the blue-faced Celts, and the maid sneered at Lord Arran for taking the lass he wanted and making off with her.
Of course he’d chosen a Campbell, which was both daft and dangerous, but Peter meant to follow Lord Glengask’s instructions: protect Lord Arran, and see him safely back to the Highlands. Everything else was secondary. Well, almost everything else was. If he’d had a way to inform the marquis about both Lady Mary being stolen away and the route they were taking he would have done so, but he couldn’t send the information without telling someone else the words to write down. And Lord Arran was adamant that no one else know what they were about—for good reason.
He finished his beer as Crawford left the tavern and returned upstairs. It was time he went back outside to watch the road for Campbells and Gerdenses and Dailys, as well. Moving past the wide bar, he waited until the one serving lass turned away. Then he reached over to pick up the letter Crawford had left for the morning’s mail coach.
He put it into his coat pocket as he left the inn. What the letter said he had no idea, but he could guess. And whether or not he found a way to contact the chief of clan MacLawry, he wasn’t about to tell the Campbells where they were, or allow anyone else to do so. Not while he had anything to say about it.
***
From the way Captain Evers from the local militia kicked up his feet for the country dance, Arran thought the lad might have had some Scottish blood in him. Whose and which clan he had no idea, so he kept as much distance as he could between the half-dozen red coats in the ballroom and himself.
“Mrs. Fox comes from money, I think,” Mrs. Castleman noted from several feet away. “I paid Mrs. Noland a shilling to braid up my hair, and it isn’t near as fancy as that.”
Arran put a smile on his face and turned away from watching Mary dance with the village’s baker. “She and her mother were both lady’s maids,” he said conversationally into the murmur of gossiping, trying not to sound stiff with the stiff Sasannach vowels. “Her mistress didn’t allow servants to marry, so here we are.”
This seemed to be the best gossip Mrs. Castleman had ever heard, because she closed in to seize Arran’s right arm. “That’s horrid!” she exclaimed with obvious delight. “Did you work for the family, as well?”
“In a roundabout way,” he returned, actually pleased he’d been able to use the tale he’d constructed during their ride today. “I was employed as their solicitor.” In tiny villages like Wigmore, the solicitor was frequently the wealthiest, most educated man about, and he’d needed to explain two horses, a coach, a driver, and a footman. As long as no one asked him to solicit anything, he figured the story would suffice. And it was far enough from the truth that it would hopefully do nothing for any pursuers but cause more confusion.
A tall, bony woman clutched his other arm. “Which family was it?” she asked, batting brown eyes up at him. “The Morrisons, I’ll wager. Lady Ludlow once chased one of her daughter’s suitors down the street with an axe. Or so I heard.”
“He couldn’t say, Fanny, I’m certain,” the innkeeper’s wife countered. “If the family found out, poor Mrs. Fox would never find employment again.”
“True enough, Mrs. Castleman,” Arran said, extricating himself from the females as the country dance squeaked to a finale. At least one of the fiddlers had been drinking too much ale, and they were sadly in need of a piper or two. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dance with my wife.”
Mary met him at the edge of the dance floor. She was out of breath and grinning, and at the sight of her and her sparkling green eyes he decided that being here with her tonight was worth the risk. Worth any risk.
“Were you seducing Mrs. Castleman?” she asked, taking the glass of lemonade he offered her and drinking half of it down.
“Nae. She does make a fine meal, but only one lass will do fer me,” he returned, straightening the lace of her left sleeve so he’d have an excuse to touch her.
“Is that why you didn’t dance?”
So she wanted to talk facts. Perhaps she was concerned she wouldn’t be able to resist him if she listened to his flirting. He liked that explanation better, anyway. “I was jealous that the baker asked ye to dance,” he said aloud. “Ye crushed my own dream of plates and platters of free biscuits.”
Mary laughed. “I had no idea you’d set your cap for him.”
God, he wanted to kiss her smiling mouth. In a quaint Sasannach village like this one, though, such scandalous behavior—even between a husband and wife—would definitely get them noticed and remembered. “Actually, some of the lasses were speculating that ye were a lady, what with yer fancy hair and pretty speech.”
She grimaced. “You told them the story, then?”
“Aye. I figured I should say someaught before they stumbled too close to the truth.”
“Do you think Crawford made my hair too fancy on purpose? She is accustomed to following the latest fashion.” She grimaced. “I should have realized. I’m sorry.”
