Mia Marlowe Read online

  “Word is, come summer, they’ll be performing these dances for the king,” MacMartin said.

  Lucinda bit her lower lip. So that was Dougal’s plan. He’d be armed. He’d be close to King George. The crowd was so mesmerized by the dirk dance, Dougal could be on the king before they realized it wasn’t part of the performance.

  And as Brodie had predicted, Dougal didn’t plan to live to tell the tale.

  She swayed uncertainly on her feet.

  “Are you well, Miss MacOwen?” Sir Darren asked solicitously. “You’ve gone quite pale. Come. I know of a little terrace off the ballroom. We’ll step out and get you a breath of fresh air.”

  He shepherded her through the crowd and into a short corridor that led toward a set of French doors. Behind them in the ballroom, the screech of pipes went on, building to a frenzy.

  Lucinda imagined how it would all play out when the king arrived next summer. Dougal’s fine strong body would whirl in a dance of stylized death, and as the music built to its frenetic conclusion, he’d make a desperate leap toward the king to deliver the fatal blow.

  Even if no one in the English contingent was bearing arms, they’d tear Dougal limb from limb before their sovereign’s body grew cold. Lucinda swallowed back the rising bile.

  “How could he even think about doing such a thing?” she mumbled. She and Sir Darren pushed through the French door and onto a slate-floored terrace. It was hedged about with a stone balustrade overlooking the expansive gardens, now pruned back and asleep for the winter.

  “I know what you mean,” Sir Darren said. “The sword dancers were pulse-pounding enough. That fellow with the dirk certainly seemed the dangerous sort. But he was only dancing, so don’t let yourself be troubled by it.”

  “Aye, I’d expect you’re right,” she said. Better that Sir Darren think she was upset by the raw aggression of the dance than by what she suspected her brother was going to do with it. And while she was at it, she needed to keep the fact that Dougal was her brother from Sir Darren as well.

  She leaned both palms on the stone balustrade and breathed in the crisp night. It was chilly enough that they wouldn’t tarry there long, but the cool air blew away her queasiness. Light snow began to fall. It was the sort that melted as soon as it touched the ground, or a dry leaf, or an eyelash, but felt more than a little magical on its way down, as if each flake was the kiss of a frost faery.

  Sir Darren came to stand beside her and rested his hand on the balustrade close enough to hers that they touched, lightly as the brush of a feather.

  “Did you know that until an unfortunate incident on the voyage here, I was Lord Bonniebroch?”

  “Really?” She’d figured she was well rid of a man who was reckless enough to chance losing so much on the turn of a card. Somehow, she’d never imagined the previous Lord Bonniebroch might be as young and engaging as Sir Darren.

  “I was a fool to be drawn into that benighted card game,” he said without looking at her.

  “A man who can admit to foolishness is on the path to becoming wise,” Lucinda said.

  “Doesn’t feel wise,” Darren said with a snort of disagreement.

  His attention seemed to be directed to the dormant garden, so she was free to study his profile.

  MacMartin had a fine straight nose and deep-set, soulful eyes. If he’d kept the title, Lucinda supposed she’d have been grateful he wasn’t the toothless, hairless wretch her sister Aileen had predicted for her and been satisfied to meet him at the altar.

  If she’d never stumbled smack into Lord Alexander Mallory’s arms.

  “Well, then, it seems we would have been betrothed but for your lack of skill at the gaming table.” She turned around and leaned the small of her back against the balustrade.

  “It wasn’t lack of skill. I—” He clamped his lips shut and his brows knit together as he obviously rethought what he was about to say. “I only want you to know if I’d met you beforehand, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so quick to offer up the title and estate in a poque game. That English fiend Mallory doesn’t deserve you.”

  The fiend in question pulled back a curtain in the ballroom and peered out at them. Pleased by the look of consternation on her betrothed’s handsome face, she decided to needle him further by leaning toward Sir Darren.

  “Flattering words are easily spoken, sir. They slide off the tongue and into the ear and mean next to nothing.” She walked her fingers up his arm.

  The curtain opened wider and from the tail of her eye, she saw Alexander’s jaw drop. If she tempted Sir Darren into kissing her, Alex would have to pick his chin off the floor.

  “I’ve always felt actions speak louder than words,” she said with more boldness than she felt. After all, she’d only really kissed one man before, but she was owed the chance to try two others. Lucinda was eager to do it if she could flummox Alexander in the process. “Perhaps there’s a way ye can show me the depth of yer esteem for me.”

  Lucinda tipped her face up, inviting MacMartin to kiss her.

  She didn’t have to ask him twice.

  Sir Darren grabbed her and jerked her roughly to him.

  “That’s it, Sassenach,” Brodie whispered into Alex’s ear, though the Englishman gave no sign of having heard him. Lord Bonniebroch all but pressed his nose against the steamed up window panes, peering out at Lucinda and that other fellow. “Are ye no’ going to do something, man?”

  The blasted Englishman had been so intent on the dirk dance, he wouldn’t have even noticed Lucinda leaving the room with Sir Darren if Brodie hadn’t jostled him enough to make his gaze swivel in their direction. Then Alexander “High-and-Mighty” Mallory finally deigned to make his way around the room at entirely too slow a pace to suit Lucinda’s ghostly protector. Brodie had to blow on the curtains over this window to make them part, as if from a draft, before the man thought about looking out onto the terrace where Lucinda was playing with fire.

  When Lucy walked her fingers up Sir Darren’s sleeve, Brodie nearly burst a gut, or would have if he’d had one, but Lord Bonniebroch stood rooted to the spot.

  “Bollocks, man, do I have to shove ye out the door to make ye protect what’s yers?”

  Brodie would have gone himself. He imagined setting a small fire in Sir Darren’s left boot. It was a neat trick and one he’d perfected with plenty of practice. Or perhaps he’d give the man a case of the prickly heat in his crotch that would have him sitting down in agony and peeing like a girl for a month.

  Anything to take the fellow’s mind off Lucinda, who’s behaving like a strumpet, so she is.

  Brodie would give her a stern talking to later that night once she was back in the safety of her own chamber. If such a thing were possible, he’d have liked to take her over his knee and tan her backside for the way she was flaunting herself before that MacMartin fellow.

  But Brodie could do nothing at the moment.

  There was a goodly breeze outside. Naked tree limbs swayed with it, their bare twiggy fingers scratching the sky’s dark back. A spirit might be blown halfway to the River Tay before he could get in any serious licks on Sir Darren.

  Then MacMartin suddenly pulled Lucinda close and covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was about taking, with not a smidge of giving at all.

  Alexander Mallory cursed softly and streaked out of the ballroom and down the corridor to the French doors.

  Brodie smiled after him.

  “Well, Sassenach, ye may be the proud owner of a pair of balls, after all.”

  Satisfied that Mallory could handle matters on the terrace, Brodie turned his attention back to the assembled Englishmen. There wasn’t much he could do if Sir Darren proved to be more than a match for Alexander.

  At least a fight would allow Lucinda time to escape. Of course, women sometimes liked to stay and watch. And once in a while, they even sided with the loser in a contest of strength—an oddity in the feminine sense of fairness that never failed to baffle Brodie.

  His gaz
e fell on the portly fellow holding court with the head of the Campbell clan. Lord Rankin, he’d heard him named.

  One of Brodie’s favorite tricks was to emit a noxious odor between two people he wished to separate. Both of them would assume the other fellow was to blame for the stench and they’d sidle away from each other in embarrassment.

  Ah, just think what fun I’ll have when George IV comes calling next summer. By the time I’m done with him, they’ll be calling the English king “Ol’ Thunder-Mugs.”

  Lucinda gasped, but Sir Darren showed no sign of letting her come up for more air. His mouth was so firm over hers, it reminded her of one of those glass cups physicians used to suction a patch of skin and draw out the ill humors that made a body sick.

  She’d only goaded him into kissing her because Alexander was watching. Oh, how she wished she hadn’t.

  Kissing other men was highly overrated.

  Alex’s kisses left her light-headed. Darren’s made her light-stomached. She felt all queasy and dirty inside. When he grasped her buttocks and lifted her into him, she nearly retched into his mouth.

  Lucinda balled her hands into impotent fists and pounded his chest.

  “Le’ muh gaw,” she said into his mouth.

  “The lady wants you to let her go,” someone said.

  Oh, thank you, God!

  The voice belonged to Alex. So did the hand that wrenched her free. Along with the fist that connected with Sir Darren’s jaw.

  Unfortunately, Sir Darren landed a punch as well. Alex’s head snapped back, but he didn’t go down.

  “Don’t be blaming me,” MacMartin said, fists tucked under his chin, ready to lash out to protect his face. “That little tart all but begged for it.”

  “Aye, I know she did,” Alex said, his body taut as a hound on point. “I was watchin’ the pair of ye through the window.”

  Lucinda stared at him in wonderment. There was the slightest hint of a brogue in his voice, even more than in Sir Darren’s. Where had that come from?

  “Then you know she started it,” MacMartin said as he circled warily.

  “And I’m ending it,” Alex promised as he launched himself toward the other man.

  “While it may seem incredibly romantic for gentlemen to come to blows over which of them deserves a lady’s favor, the knowledgeable miss will bear in mind the old adage:

  ‘To the victor goes the spoils. ’

  The victorious gentleman may well enjoy his triumph.

  The same cannot always be said for the spoils.”

  From The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide

  to Eligible Gentlemen

  Chapter Ten

  Lucinda had seen enough male ferocity while she watched her brother perform the dirk dance to last her a lifetime. The naked aggression on Alexander’s features as he whaled away on Sir Darren MacMartin made Dougal’s stylized combat seem pale and toothless by comparison.

  The men met with a furious exchange of blows and counterpunches, a strike to the midsection here, an elbow to the kidney there. Lucinda flinched at each thud of fist on ungiving flesh. The fight degenerated into a brawl with no observable rules.

  Snow fell more heavily now, sticking to the slate pavers and making them slick underfoot. Lucinda slipped as she backed away from the men and would have gone down if she hadn’t grasped the dead vines crawling up a trellis attached to the great house.

  She gasped when Alexander staggered back a pace after one of Sir Darren’s wild swings connected with his temple. He ducked the next blow and came up with an undercut to Sir Darren’s jaw. The force of the wallop spun MacMartin around and laid him out on the snow-covered terrace.

  A dribble of red showed starkly on the gathering white.

  “Damn you, Mallory.” MacMartin rose to his knees, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ve knocked out a tooth.”

  “Stay down or you’ll eat nothing but soup for the rest of your life.” Alex stood over him, chest heaving, fists still clenched. For good measure, he planted his booted foot on his foe’s spine, pushing him back into a prone position. “You will give Miss MacOwen a wide berth for the rest of the time you remain here at Dalkeith. If you’re seated next to her at supper, you’ll excuse yourself and take a tray in your room. You will not dance with her. You will not speak with her. If I mislike the way you so much as look at her, we’ll do this again and I won’t stop with one tooth. Have I made myself clear?”

  MacMartin nodded, but otherwise remained motionless.

  Lucinda’s heart fairly sang. Alexander did care for her. No man laid out another like that unless he had feelings for the lady.

  Then Alex turned his steely gaze on her and she began to have a bit of a rethink. If his glower was any indication, the feelings he had for her now were not the ones she was hoping for.

  He didn’t say a word, but when he grasped her firmly by the wrist, she had no choice but to accompany him back toward the palace. Alexander pulled the French door open and then once they were inside, he threw the bolt behind them. Sir Darren would have to trudge all the way around the great house in the increasingly thick snow in order to re-enter by the main doors in front.

  “You’re going to make a terrible enemy,” Lucinda said.

  “Thanks to you, I already have.” He tugged her down the hall. “Did it occur to you that I might have more important things to do than to make sure you don’t come to grief through your own foolishness?”

  She decided to let the “foolishness” pass unremarked. She had been foolish, but he was still her betrothed. Alexander owed her the protection of his body. “Most men find tending to the welfare of their future brides to be quite important, more important than other matters, in fact.”

  “Most men don’t have their future brides forced upon them.”

  Lucinda swallowed back her hurt at that and settled for bristling anger instead. The man was being hateful for the sake of it. Very well. She could repay him in kind.

  She hoped they’d return to the ballroom where a sprightly tune signaled that a country dance was in progress, but Alexander kept barreling down the corridor without slowing one bit.

  “If I’ve pulled ye away from something so dreadfully important, far be it from me to keep ye.”

  “Trust me, madam, you now have my complete attention.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. And her wrist was beginning to ache where he gripped it.

  “My sisters will wonder where I’ve gone.” She broke into a trot to keep up with his determined strides.

  “No, they won’t. They’re having far too much fun dancing to fret over your whereabouts,” he said. “Besides, you should have thought of that before you left the ballroom with that blatherskite MacMartin.”

  “Aunt Hester will be looking for me.”

  “Your aunt Hester will be looking for her next tot of rum. She was working on her third when I left her. The drink may leave her drooling, but it makes the old bat more agreeable.”

  “That’s no’ verra charitable of ye. She’s a poor old widow woman—”

  “Who probably drove her husband to the grave with her incessant demands.” He pulled her into the first available empty room.

  A banked fire smoked in the grate, but it was enough for Alexander to use to light the lamp with a straw taper. Then he closed the door to the corridor, sealing them in.

  The room turned out to be a study of sorts. There was a wall of bookshelves, but they were too sparsely filled to be called a library. Hunting trophies lined the other walls, disembodied heads of rams and stags glaring down with glass-eyed gazes of amazement at finding themselves in such a state. A bearskin rug, complete with a snarling openmouthed maw, was stretched out in the middle of the room.

  There was no desk, but a pair of wing chairs done up in scarred, worn leather flanked a small table where a game of chess was set up. The board was in a state of play, with the black bishop threatening the white king. Unless the player on the white side was willing to
sacrifice his queen, the game would be over inside a couple of moves.

  No players were in sight, more’s the pity. Lucinda needed a buffer between herself and the man who seemed fiercer than the bear on the floor. She settled for crossing her arms over her chest and meeting Alexander’s glare with one of her own.

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” he said.

  “You beat a man to first blood,” she said. “Why do ye think that should please me?”

  “Because you tempted him into kissing you so I’d do it.”

  “Sir Darren has no free will? That’ll be a surprise to his vicar.” The intense way Alexander looked at her made her tremble. She’d have a better chance at suppressing how he affected her if she were sitting. Lucinda crossed the room and sat in one of the wing chairs. “And how can I be to blame for you bursting out onto the terrace and picking a fight with the man?”

  “It’s clearly what you wanted. You purposely allowed him to kiss you in the hope of making me jealous.”

  “So you are jealous.”

  “Of MacMartin? You jest. I only intervened to save you from his ignoble intentions.” He gave her a mocking bow. “I’d have done the same for any other silly female in similar circumstances.”

  Her chest constricted. How had Alexander divined her intentions so easily? If he had any tender feelings for her, he was making a good job of hiding them.

  “I wasn’t trying to make you jealous because you have no standing to be. The only thing binding us is a contract and I’m no’ yours yet,” she said tartly. “May I remind you that you agreed I should kiss three men before our wedding?”

  “That wasn’t a kiss. It was an assault,” Alex said through clenched teeth. “Admit it. You were out of your depth and struggling to break free from him.”

  “No, I wasna.” The lie tasted sour on her tongue. “And even if I was,” she amended, “if I’d wanted to get away, I would have.”

  “Really? What would you have done if I hadn’t arrived?”