Page 86 of Rogue with a Brogue
Of course she’d already realized that. “I’ve heard that Virginia is a fine, fertile land,” he said slowly. “With milder winters than up in the Cairngorms.”
“Ye mean we have to be Yankees?” Peter asked.
“Do they have ale there?” Howard lifted the bottle they’d purchased from the inn. “And whisky?”
“Aye. They also have horses, I hear. And fiddles.”
“Well, if someone there can play the pipes and they have some good tobacco, then what are we waitin’ fer?” the footman announced.
“We’re waiting because we’re Highlanders,” Mary said, removing Arran’s jacket and putting it over his shoulders, then shifting to sit between his legs and lean back against his chest. “We’ll make a go of it here, first.” She took his arms and pulled them around her shoulders.
“I’m yer blanket now, am I?” he muttered, kissing her hair.
“You’re my everything,” she whispered back, tilting her head back to kiss his chin. “Now. Tell me this plan you have for tomorrow.”
Arran grinned. If his lady didn’t so much as blink an eye at the idea of traveling across an ocean to make a new life, she certainly wouldn’t be troubled by a bit of subterfuge. As she said, they were Highlanders. And so with a bit of the luck that had been journeying with them so far, in twelve hours or so he would be a married man—and not a dead one.
Chapter Nineteen
“This is the worst idea in the history of bloody bad ideas,” Peter complained, turning his back on Arran. “I said I’d be a Yankee, but this is going too far.”
Arran shot Mary a quick grin, then fastened the buttons running up the footman’s back. “I dunnae fit in the battle-axe’s gown. Ye do. Now shuck yer trousers.”
Peter turned around again, his face going scarlet beneath the matronly gray bonnet they’d liberated from Crawford. “Nae in front of Lady Mary,” he grumbled, and stalked behind the wagon.
“Coward.”
“I didn’t dress in front ofhim,” Mary said, tucking her oversized shirt into her taken-in trousers and wishing she’d had time to do a bit more sewing. “It’s only fair.”
“But ye didnae dress in front of me, either, and that’s nae fair. Let me look at ye, lass.”
“That’s laddy, if ye don’t mind,” she ventured, lowering the timbre of her voice as much as she could.
With only her small hand mirror to view her appearance, she would have to rely on him. But she thought she looked very like a lad of fifteen or sixteen, clad in handed-down, altered brown trousers, the clearly cut-down coat of some other undescribable brown color, and the worn shirt that had once been white.
“I wish Howard’s shoes fit ye better,” he said, and took her around the waist. “I know I willnae mistake ye fer a lad.”
“Will anyone else, though? That is the question.”
“Here. Try this.” He set his floppy-brimmed straw hat over the tight knot of hair she’d put at the top of her head. “And dunnae smile. Ye’re far too lovely when ye smile.”
Well, that was very nice. “Howard’s coat is too small for you,” she returned, tugging at the lapels. “But with his cap on, you do look less like you.” She met his gaze, his light blue eyes the precise color of the sky this morning. “Is this going to work?”
“I’d be happier if we didnae have such a fine day,” he commented, glancing toward the clear sky. “It’s a good omen fer a wedding, but I’d like it better if we had cold and rain so we could bundle ye up a bit more.”
“Arran, you’re a… large, strapping man. If they’re inside that church, they’ll recognize you.”
He shook his head. “They’ll nae be inside the church. That’s one thing all Highlanders agree on. A church is sacred and holy. If they’re in Gretna Green, they’ll be watching the ootside of the building. And they’ll be looking fer a proper lady and a handsome, roguish Highlander. Nae two farm lads and their mother bringing flowers to the church.”
“I’m beginning to think we might just declare ourselves handfasted.”
He grinned. “And so we are. But we need to sign that church register as husband and wife. It’s proof, and evidence, and it’s in Scotland. And once the church is involved, both the Campbells and MacLawrys will have to be a bit more… careful in the way they proceed.”
She knew that, of course. A church wedding would provide an additional layer of protection for both of them. That was always his aim—to keep her safe. But it would keep him safer, as well. Their marriage would be recorded. No one would be able to make him simply disappear, as her father had been planning.
Arran ground his fine Hessian boots into the earth, scuffing and dirtying them beyond repair, then pulled them on. They couldn’t hide his height or his broad shoulders, but in ill-fitting clothes and a worn hack driver’s cap and dreadful-looking boots, he would at least raise some doubts. Together with a younger brother and a frumpy mother, perhaps he would go unnoticed altogether. Not by Mary, of course.
“I hope ye dunnae expect me to clean those ever again,” Peter said, gesturing at Arran’s boots as he hobbled around the side of the wagon.
