Never Kiss a Laird (13 page)

Rupert looked at him with a
gratified smile.
 
“I would like that,” he
said, forgetting his sister’s instructions completely.
 
“I say, that is very kind of you.
 
I admit I would rather not be in London just at present.”

“That’s settled, then.”

Rupert shook hands with the Earl,
and made arrangements to return in time for dinner with his carriage and
trunks.
 
As he cantered down the drive
away from the castle, Rupert felt that he had discharged his duty very well
indeed after all.
 
While staying in the
Castle he would obviously have ample opportunity to converse with the maids,
and find a way to connect his sister’s protégé with her carrier’s lad.
  
The opportunity to get in some shooting with
the Earl was just a nice little side benefit.

When her brother arrived back at
Whitethorne
cottage, Sally ran out to meet him.
 

“Well?” she demanded eagerly.
 
“How did it go?
 
Did you speak with one of the maids?”

“Let me at least get out of the
saddle, Sally,” Rupert laughed.
 
“You
will be very pleased with me I think, but let me take Beauty into the stable,
and meet you inside.”

Sally stood in the doorway of the
cottage, too excited to sit patiently by the fire.
 
 
It
seemed to take Rupert an age to unsaddle Beauty, but when he approached, Sally
took his arm and pulled him into the sitting room.

“I will say, Sally, that I had some
doubts about your plan, but I think it’s going to work out fine,” he told her.

“Were you able to get a message to
one of the maids, then, Rupert?”
 
she
exclaimed, sounding a little surprised.
 
Handing him a cup of tea, she patted him on
the shoulder.
 
“Well done!”

“Well, no, not yet,” Rupert
admitted.
 
“But I met with the Earl.
 
He’s not an old man, Sally.”
 
He took a sip of his hot tea, and missed the
sharp look his sister sent his way.

“Not yet?”
 
she
repeated,
confused.

“No.
 
The Earl has invited me to stay at Castle
Kane for a few days, to get in some hunting before heading back to London.”

Sally shook her head at her brother,
exasperated.
 
“Rupert, I didn’t send you
up to the Castle to wrangle an invitation to a hunting party.”

“No, but the Earl is a capital
fellow, Sally.
 
We were thinking of the old
Earl, who was indeed a friend of our father’s.
 
He passed away last year, and Hugh, the current Earl, is a great
gun.
 
And while I’m staying at the
Castle, I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to execute your plan and reunite your
maid with her beau.”

“Hugh?” Sally repeated in a hollow
voice.
 
“Did you say that the Earl is a
young man named Hugh?”

“Yes, and dashed handsome, with a
way of tying his cravat that I would not mind learning.
 
I might just get the chance to ask him, too.
 
I liked him at once.
 
He is staying for a week or so to get in some
hunting, and said he’d be grateful for the company.
 
Oh, and he knows our grandmother, Sally.
 
She is his godmother.”

Sally closed her eyes.
 
Hugh, her Hugh, was the Earl of Kane.
 
Well, she considered after a moment, what
difference did that make to her?
 
She had
no designs upon his title or fortune.
 
A
smile stole into her eyes, and without volition her lip curled.
 
She did, however, have designs upon him.
  
But could he have been the cruel cause of
Bridget’s banishment?
 
It didn’t seem
possible.
 
Sally knew she must get to the
bottom of the matter.
 
She looked at her
brother, and knew that Rupert’s open and confiding nature did not make him an
ideal conspirator, but it would definitely be helpful to have a collaborator
inside the Castle.
 
Even Rupert should be
able to find a way to get a message to Robbie, and that was the most important
thing.

“You will certainly be more
comfortable up at the Castle than you would be here,” she smiled at him.
 
“I was going to have to turn Miles out of his
room for you.”

“Indeed,” Rupert agreed.
 
“I had been picturing some old Scottish ruin,
but the Castle is pretty impressive, Sally.
 
My only regret is that I don’t have Champion with me, or some others of
my hunters.
 
Hugh said he can mount me,
of course, and will be happy to have more of his hunters exercised than he can
ride himself.
 
He’s a capital gun,
Sally.
 
I say,” he exclaimed on a sudden
idea.
 
“I can say that you are visiting
our grandmother as well, and you can come up and see the place for yourself!”

“No indeed!”
 
Sally cried out.
 
“On no account must the Earl know that I am
in the area.
 
If he knows our
grandmother, word will somehow get back to her and our parents, I know it will.
 
Promise me, Rupert that you will not even
mention my name.”

Uncomfortably aware that he had
already done so, Rupert nodded.
 
“As you wish, Sally.”

Rupert continued to extol the
virtues of the Earl of Kane and his magnificent home, and his good luck in
coming to Scotland
while the Earl was in residence, until Sally was more than ready to send him on
his way.
 
They made arrangements to each
go for a ride the following morning at eleven, arranging to meet on the moors
for a council of war.
 
After seeing him
back into his carriage, Sally watched until her brother was out of sight before
going back into the cottage.

She stood in the dingy hallway, and
she could hear Millie and Bridget in the kitchen, talking and laughing as they
prepared the evening meal.
 
Through the
window she saw Miles carrying firewood.
 
An inviting fire crackled in the grate in the sitting room.
 
A feeling of contentment settled over Sally,
surprising her considerably.
 
 
The door to the kitchen pushed open, and
Bridget emerged, carrying a tea tray.
 
Sally followed her into the sitting room, but decided she would not tell
her about Rupert’s progress until she could report success.

Chapter Ten

Hugh, atop his stallion, cantered
along his well-manicured drive at an unusually early hour the next
morning.
 
Rufus was in need of a good
gallop, and the Earl was in need of time to consider all the information he had
gleaned from his very talkative house guest the night before.
 
Rupert had fully intended to follow Sally’s
instructions to the letter; find out what he could about the carrier’s
schedule, and make no mention of his sister.

The Earl, however, had an entirely
different agenda.
 
He had greeted his
young guest in the library before dinner, handing Rupert a glass of wine and
indicating a seat before the fire.

“That’s a very fine sherry,” Rupert
had said, lifting the amber liquid to the light.

“Thank you,” Hugh replied. “My
father was something of an expert, and I am merely the lucky recipient of his
cellar.
 
You shall try a burgundy at
dinner that I hope you will find very acceptable.”

“I’m sure I shall,” Rupert assured
him, flattered at the Earl’s assumption that he had such an educated palate.
 
He had found the handsome nobleman very easy
to talk to, not high in the instep in the least.
 
The two men fell easily into conversation, finding
that they had several friends in common.
 
They shared an interest in prize fighting, and it turned out that they
had both attended the same amateur match a few months back, Rupert having lost
quite a sum betting on the wrong fighter.
 
Dinner was announced, and the two men went in to the stately dining
room, where the covers had been laid at one corner of a table that would easily
seat thirty persons.
  
A pair of candelabras,
several decanters, and an assortment of succulent dishes were the only decorations;
a rather austere, masculine décor that Rupert heartily approved.
 
Even when the family dined alone at Denham Park,
the service was always formal.
 
This
casual and easy way of dining suited
Rupert,
and he dropped
his guard, and accepted a second and then a third glass of wine.

“So tell me,” Hugh asked after the
covers had been removed, and he and Rupert sat at the table with a decanter of
port between them, cigars in their hands.
 
“What is this I hear from Lady Waverly about your sister being missing?
 
I should tell you that I had a letter from my
godmother this afternoon, asking if I had any knowledge of her whereabouts.”

Rupert choked on his port, his
cigar falling from suddenly nerveless fingers.
 
“Dash it!’
 
he
exclaimed, brushing sparks from his waistcoat, and hastily picking up the cigar
before it could burn the carpet.
 
‘My
apologies, Hugh,” he uttered, attempting to assume a nonchalant position in his
chair.
 
 
“My sister, did you say?”

Hugh smiled urbanely, a glint in
his eyes.
 
Not unlike his beautiful
sister, Rupert’s thoughts were mirrored on his open countenance.
 
Just now he looked a little like a rabbit
trapped in a burrow, but Hugh pressed on relentlessly.
 
“Yes, Miss Sarah Denham.
 
You mentioned that she was unfairly accused
of some behavior that had caused her to fall into disfavor with your family?”

Rupert swallowed a gulp of
port.
 
His head was swimming a little
from the many glasses of wine he had consumed, but he was aware of a feeling of
outrage that his sister’s reputation continued to be sullied.
 

“Very unfair!”
 
he
assured his
host.
 
“Sally did nothing wrong at all,
and what’s more, our parents know it too.
  
I’ll admit it looked for
all
the
world as if she’d spent a night in the company of Simon Atherly, but
it was no such thing.
 
I was surprised
when she wouldn’t marry him, but she was adamant, and once Sally makes up her
mind, there’s no changing it.
 
But it was
the scandal, you know.
 
All our neighbors
gave Sally the cut, and that was it.
 
Our
mother canceled her come-out, and my father was determined to send her to our
grandmother.
 
But Sally gave them the
slip.
 
Always had a deal of courage, even
when she was tiny, did Sally.”
 
Rupert
smiled reminiscently,
then
gave a hiccough.
 
“’
Scuse
me,” he
slurred.

Hugh leaned back in his chair.
 
“So it would appear,” he murmured
thoughtfully.
 
‘And you are here to visit
her?”

“She’s rented a cottage
nearby.
 
Has enough funds to last until
she comes of age next year, then she comes into her fortune.
 
Says she’s going to France
after that.”

Hugh grinned.
 
“That seems like a fitting destination for a
fallen woman.”

Rupert sat up and looked at Hugh
with astonishment.
 
“That’s exactly what
Sally said.
 
You should meet Sally.
 
You two would get along famously.”

A deep smile stole into Hugh’s brown
eyes and he thought back over his interactions with the courageous Miss
Denlington.
 
“Yes, we do,” he
agreed.
 

He had assisted Rupert up to the
Blue Room shortly thereafter, divested him of his coat and boots, and tucked
him in to bed.
 
His guest had still been
sound asleep when Hugh had asked for Rufus to be saddled after an early
breakfast the next morning.
 

So the fiery Sally Denlington was
in fact Miss Sarah Denham, Lady Waverly’s poor compromised granddaughter, and at
present
a tenant in one of his cottages.
 
Hugh recalled that he had been advised by his
agent that
Whitethorne
cottage had been rented, with
a year’s rent paid in advance.
 
His agent
was a good north countryman, with a good north countryman’s old-fashioned ways,
and it was very unlikely he would have thought a single woman a fitting
tenant.
 
Hugh threw his head back and
laughed.
 
That would not have stopped his
red-haired beauty.
 

Urging Rufus into a gallop, Hugh
quickly covered the ground between the Castle and
Whitethorne
cottage.
 
As he neared a rise overlooking
the cottage he pulled his horse up.
 
The
older man whom Hugh recognized as Sally’s groom was helping two women into a
gig.
 
Hugh thought the older woman looked
like the maid he had encountered earlier.
 
He didn’t recognize Sally in the other woman, who wore a hooded cloak,
but it must be she.
 
Miles climbed onto
the bench, and flicked the reigns, and the little gig moved down the lane and
eventually out of sight.
 
Hugh allowed
Rufus to pick his way down toward the cottage.

He was disappointed that he would
not have the opportunity to match wits with Sally again, but a little relieved
that he didn’t have to decide whether or not to inform her that he was aware of
her true identity.
 
He brought Rufus to a
stop in front of the stone cottage, and dismounted.

Whitethorne
cottage had been occupied by an old school friend of his mother’s for as long
as Hugh could remember.
 
This friend had
fallen on hard times, and his mother had insisted that she take up residence
here on the estate.
 
When Hugh was a boy
he would occasionally accompany his mother to the cottage to take tea with her
friend.
 
The woman had passed away two
years ago, and the cottage had stood empty during that time.
 
Hugh had been pleased to see it rented
again.
 

His memories of this place had all
been happy ones.
 
When his mother came to
visit her friend, she seemed like a different person. She would laugh and
reminisce and even make jokes.
 
His stern
father did not encourage any of those behaviors at the Castle.
 
Hugh, resembling his light-hearted mother far
too closely for his father’s liking, had been the recipient of many lectures
about how serious the business of living should be.
 
After Hugh’s mother had died, there was no
more laughter at Castle Kane.

Hugh looked at the cottage, his
mother’s memory almost a tangible presence.
 
His reverie was brought to a quick end, however, as the cottage door
flew open and Sally emerged out onto the stone steps.

“Mr. McLeod?” she exclaimed,
surprised.
 
Then her brow lowered, and
blue sparks seemed to shoot from her eyes.
 
“Or should I say,
my lord
?”
 
she
asked from
between tightened lips.

Hugh executed a graceful bow.
 
“At your service, Miss
Denlington.
 
Or should I say Miss
Sarah Denham?”
 
he
lifted one eyebrow as he spoke, and watched the color rush into Sally’s high
cheekbones.

“Rupert!” she pronounced
wrathfully.
 

“Don’t be too hard on your
brother,” Hugh laughed.
 
“He tried
valiantly.
 
But I was pretty determined
to find out your identity.”
  
A few hard
raindrops began to pelt Hugh, and he looked up at a gathering grey cloud.

“Well, you may as well come
inside,” Sally offered grudgingly, as the rain began to come down in earnest.
 
“This is probably your cottage, after
all.”
 

Hugh followed her into the sitting
room, where a small fire was sputtering.
 
He knelt down and threw a piece of wood onto the embers, and a flame
immediately sprang up.
 
Turning on one
knee, he looked up at Sally.
 
“The
resemblance between you and your brother is really very pronounced, you
know.
 
I should have figured it out even
if he had not mentioned his sister Sally.”

Sally shook her head angrily.
 
“Rupert could never keep a secret.
 
Even when we were children, my mother had
only to question Rupert to find out anything we were trying to hide from her.”

“And did you have much to
hide?”
 
Hugh smiled.

Sally laughed, her temper dying
out.
 
“Childish things only,” she
replied.
 
“However this secret is much
more important to me.”
 
She walked over
to the window, and stood looking out.
 
“How much did my brother tell you?’ she asked painfully.

“Only that you were accused of
something unfairly.
 
That you had been
disgraced, and were to be sent away, but that you, how did he put it?
 
Gave them the slip!
 
Your brother loves you very much indeed, you
know.”

Sally turned around and met his
gaze.
 
“I do know.
 
You have no idea how glad I was to see
him.
 
I am so grateful to Miles and
Millie for coming with me, but I have been missing Rupert amazingly.”

“I can only imagine.”
 

“Do you have brothers?”
 
Sally asked.

“No, I do not.
 
My parents were both only children, and I do
not even have cousins, I’m afraid.
 
My
heir is so far removed from me that I have never even met him.”

Sally’s ready sympathy sprang
up.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
But then, you would understand how important it
is to have someone on your side.”

“I do.
 
And I would like you to know that there is
another on your side as well.”
 
Hugh
approached Sally as he spoke, taking her hand and pulling her over to the
fire.
 
As she sank down onto the settle,
Hugh bent and kissed her hand.
 

Sally’s breath seemed to stop in
her chest at the touch of his lips on her hand.
 
Her fingers tightened on his hand, and she heard his intake of
breath.
 
She looked up and met his eyes, her
breast moving up and down as her breath quickened.
 
The Earl met her gaze.
 
A quick flush had sprung into Sally’s high
cheekbones, and as he watched, her mouth opened and her tongue touched her
suddenly dry lips.
 
Her countenance was
so easy to read, Hugh marveled to himself, and her tantalizing response to his
touch engulfed him, encouraging his baser instincts.
 
Hugh was consumed by a strong desire to sweep
her up into his arms, and taste her sweetness again.
 

“Miss Denham,” Hugh said in a husky
voice.
 
“I should not be here.
 
My apologies.
 
I will go now, while I am still in command of
my actions.”
 

Sally could see his chest rising
and falling rapidly, could feel his response to her touch, just as her own body
was responding.
 
She retained her grasp
on his hand, and as he stood, she was pulled to her feet as well.
 
She knew that Hugh was right.
 
She had come to the brink of crossing a line
that could not be repaired the last time they had been alone together, but Hugh
had stopped them.
 
As she stood holding
Hugh McLeod’s hand, as her body responded in a way that was as intoxicating as
it was novel, Sally knew that she would not walk away this time.
 
Even if she spent the rest of her life in
disgraced banishment, she would have this moment.