Never Kiss a Laird (9 page)

“And in a small
village like Thorne, there’s no keeping a secret,” Sallie mused. “Well, you can
just stay here with us until then,” she offered impulsively.

“Uh, Miss
Sally,” Millie caviled.
 
“Are you
forgetting that we have but two chambers, and can barely feed ourselves?”

“Bridget can
share my chamber.
 
You won’t object to
sharing with me, will you?”

“Oh, no,
miss.
 
Do you really mean it?”
 
Bridget clasped Sally’s hands to her lips,
overcome with her good fortune.
 
“Oh,
thank you, miss.
 
Thank you!”

Sally smiled and
pulled her hands away.
 
“You are very
welcome.
 
But I must tell you that we are
not very plump in the pocket at present.”

“That’s nothing
to me, miss,” Bridget assured her.
 
“My
mam has thirteen
bairns
, and my father works a small
farm.
 
We’ve always been purse pinched.”

A hopeful gleam
appeared in Sally’s eye.
 
“Can you, by
any chance, cook, Bridget?”

“Oh yes, miss,”
Bridget nodded emphatically. “I can cook anything!”

“What would you
do with some beets, some carrots and a few potatoes?”
 
Sally asked casually.

“Oh miss, I
could make a very good root vegetable stew.
 
My mam can take a few old vegetables and make a meal that can fill all
of us, and before I went to be a maid, I always helped in the kitchen.”

“And can you
make bread?”
 
Sally held her breath.

“Oh yes,
miss.
 
I can make bread, and cakes, and
stews.
 
I truly can.”

Sally laughed
happily, and even Millie had to smile.
 
“Then this is very fortuitous.
 
You may stay until your carrier’s lad comes for you. You can earn your
keep by cooking, and teaching Millie and me how to do so, too.
 
And in return we will devise a plan to
contact Robbie when next he comes to Castle Kane.”

Chapter Six

The Viscount Denham sat at the
ornate, glass-topped desk in his book room at Denham Park,
his fingers turning a paperweight over again and again, his mind in a brown
study.
 
Ever since he had received the
letter from his mother-in-law informing him that Sally had never arrived at
Waverly, he had been unable to concentrate on business or leisure.
 
The door opened, and he looked up as his wife
entered the room.

“My dear, I believe I will ask the
Turners and the
Wisbecks
for dinner on Saturday, and
a few hands of piquet afterwards.
 
It’s
been such a long time since we’ve had any of the London gossip.”
 
Lady Denham walked to the French windows as
she talked, and pulled the curtains back, and sunlight flooded the room.
 
She turned and bent a frown upon her
spouse.
 
“Why are you sitting here in the
dark, George?”

Sally’s papa shook his head.
 
“How can you, Regina?
 
Sally is missing, we have no idea if she is safe or in danger, and you
are organizing card parties.”

Lady Denham raised one elegant eyebrow.
 
“What would you have me do, George?
 
Sit around ringing my hands?
 
The wretched girl made her bed, and must lie
in it.
 
Must I lie in it as well?”

“My dear,” the Viscount objected.
 
“Can you not find one particle of pity for
Sally in your heart?
 
You know as well as
I do that she is blameless of the charges laid at her feet.”

“I know nothing of the kind,”
Sally’s mother stated baldly.
 
“We have
only her word.
 
Simon Atherly made no
such charge.”

“Simon Atherly wanted Sally’s
eighty thousand pounds.”

“And he’s welcome to them, if he
takes her and her tarnished reputation.
 
You know that he is in town, and the word is that he has had some very
bad losses at the gaming table.
 
I am
very sure that he is still interested in a match with Sally.”

“That’s as may be, my dear, but
first we must locate the girl.”
 
He
passed a hand across his brow, a frown on his face.
 
“I still think that we were wrong to banish
her to Scotland.
 
You know that your mother has never had any
fondness for the girl.
 
Sally begged us
not to send her, and we didn’t listen.
 
And now she is gone, we know not where.”

“What choice did we have?”
 
Lady Denham snapped.
 
“You saw the Turkish treatment we received at
the Hunt ball.
  
Mrs. Greenly gave us the
cut direct in the village.
 
Sally had to
go.”

“We could have let her stay in her
home, to wait and see if it would all blow over.”

“You are a hopeless romantic,
George.”
 
Regina said acidly.
 
“That was never going to happen.
 
There are many examples of women who have been
thoughtless of their reputations, and they are never again received in any
household with standards.
 
My god, would
I receive such a girl into my own home?
 
I would not!”

“She is your daughter, Regina.”

“Yes, and I have two sons to worry
about as well.
 
Should I allow them to be
tainted by Sally’s indiscretions?
 
Where
has all this sentiment come from, George?
 
You were as angry as I was when we heard from my mother that Sally had
run away.”

The Viscount raised a hand to shade
his eyes.
  
His conscience was smarting,
and he was truly worried about where Sally was, and in what straits she might
be finding herself.

“My anger has been replaced with
worry, Regina.
 
I made sure that Sally was coming home, but
we have not heard a word form her.
 
I
have made up my mind that we will travel to Waverly, and see if we can pick up
Sally’s trail.”

“On no account in
the world!”
 
Lady Denham
averred.
 
“Believe me,
George,
the girl will come home when she has run out of money.
 
She just received this month’s pin money, but
that will not last long.”

“I cannot sleep for worrying about
where she is,” the Viscount ran a hand distracted over his head.
 

Lady Denham approached her husband,
and laid a hand on his shoulder.
 
“I will
bring you some laudanum after dinner tonight.
 
You just need a good night’s sleep, and you will see that I am
right.
 
Sally is snug in some inn or
posting house with her maid.
 
Once she
runs out of funds she will return to us, mark my words.”

The Viscount reached up to pat his
wife’s hand.
 
“Do you think so?”
 
he
asked hopefully.
 
“The only thought that sustains me is the
fact that Millie is with her.”

“I am certain of it,” she replied
with conviction.
 
“Sally has not gotten
her way for the first time in her life, and she has thrown a tantrum.
 
We would be very wrong to fall for her
tricks, George.
 
Trust me.
 
I know very well what I am about.”

The Viscount released her hand,
sighing heavily.
 
“Very
well, my dear.
 
We will do as you
say.
 
But if we have not had word from
her in a
se’nnight
I am heading north.”

“Let’s not make any hasty
promises.”
 
Lady Denham said
complacently.
 
“I am sure we will hear
from her.
 
And if we do not, we can send
Rupert up to Scotland.
 
He was always Sally’s favorite, and is the
most likely of us to uncover her whereabouts.”

The Viscount’s dark expression
lightened.
 
“You may be right, my
dear.
 
Let’s not wait.
 
I will send for Rupert now, and he can travel
to Scotland
as soon as may be arranged.”

“As you wish,” Lady Denham replied.
She had no very good opinion of Rupert’s intelligence, but there would be no
harm in letting him wander around the Scottish towns for a few weeks.
 
Better that than look at his long face at
dinner every night.
 
“I’ll just go write
a letter for him to carry to my mother.”

“Thank you, my dear,” the Viscount
said gratefully.
 
“I will feel much
better knowing that someone is looking for our girl.”

Chapter Seven

Over the next
few days, Sally reveled in a returning state of optimism.
 
The venture that had started out very shakily
was finding roots and growing nicely.
 
She had been taught the mysteries of turning a
few oats into a lovely, smooth, nutty, and very filling, bowl of porridge.
 
Bridget had shown Sally and her maid how to
make a satisfying stew from a pile of vegetables, and how to wash and hang out
clothes so that they remained wearable.
 
In return, Bridget shared Sally’s bed chamber, and enjoyed for the first
time the heady sensation of being valued for her contributions.
 
She blossomed under the praise and gratitude
that was showered upon her by her grateful saviors.
 

Sally had also
learned more about the romance that had burgeoned between her young guest and Robbie
Fraser, the carrier’s lad.
 
Bridget had
first met her swain when a large order for draperies and carpets had been
delivered to the Castle. The young maid had immediately been attracted to the
tall, muscular boy who carried the heavy carpets so easily.
 
She had volunteered to bring tea out to the
lads, and had fallen into conversation with Robbie.
 
Like her, he came from a large family, and
had left to make his way in the world.
 
He had grand plans that included one day
having a carrier business of his own.
 
That
first meeting had been over a year ago, and when Mrs. Cameron had hired the
carrier to bring all the household orders from London, Bridget had looked
forward eagerly to the arrival of the carrier’s cart, and every month or two
she and her lover had stolen a few precious minutes away together.

“But you must
not think we meant to misbehave, miss,” Bridget assured her earnestly.
 
“We tried very hard to be good, but when he
touches me, miss, I just don’t seem to remember anything my mam told me about
how to act with the lads.”

Sally,
remembering her own recent, and quite reprehensible, encounter with a handsome
young man, felt incapable of uttering a reproof.
 

“Robbie asked me
to marry him, and I said yes,” Bridget said with a reminiscent sigh.
 
“He said we could live with his family until
we can afford a place of our own. He even told his mam, and she gave her
consent. Mrs. Cameron called me shameless, but Robbie and I are in love, miss.
 
It’s not shameful.”
 
She looked apprehensively at Sally, fearing
to see censure on her face.
 

Sally, with a
thousand questions on her tongue that she could not ask, had reassured Bridget
that she would help her find her carrier’s lad.
 
Sally wondered if she could find an excuse to go up to the Castle, and
talk to one of the maids.
 
And if she
should run into the Laird of the Castle while she was there, and had the
opportunity to inform him of her opinion of his cruel treatment in ousting the
poor maid when she was so much in need of help, well, so much the better.
 

Sally was
hampered in her quest by the inability to write a note to leave for the
unlettered Robbie, and by Bridget’s inability to tell her what day the carrier
was expected, or indeed the name of the carrier company.
 
It could be up to two months before the
carrier’s cart would be needed again from London,
according to the maid. Sally formed the intention of asking one of the maids up
at the Castle to direct Robbie to
Whitethorne
cottage
on his next trip, a plan that seemed fraught with the possibility of error,
even if she could pull it off.
  

She was further
hampered by the dawning realization of just how much work was involved in
living simply in a small cottage.
 
It
seemed to
Sally,
and to the long-suffering Millie,
that there were endless chores to complete from the moment they woke until they
fell exhausted into bed at the end of the day.
 
On the positive side, it gave Sally very little time to fret about the
future; the present was providing more than enough fodder for worry.

One bright
morning, a few days after Bridget’s arrival, Miles saddled Beauty for Sally,
and, taking a few coins from her carefully hoarded purse and the charily
prepared shopping list, she set out for the village. Millie had ruthlessly
removed all the items from the list that she deemed frivolous, paring it down
to a very economical catalog of necessities only.
 
But the early March sun was shining with unexpected
warmth, and a few brave crocuses were poking their purple heads through the
earth, and Sally couldn’t repress a bubble of happiness as Beauty picked her
delicate way along the road to Thorne village.
  
The world may be an unfair, censorious place, but a sunny spring-like
day was stretching before her, and Sally’s natural optimism surged to the
fore.
 

She had to admit
that the addition of Bridget to the little cottage community had been an
unexpected stroke of luck. Not only did the ingenious girl know how to cook, but
she had told Sally exactly where to go for her purchases, and warned her
against the butcher’s heavy thumb, which found its way onto the scale if you
weren’t watching carefully when he weighed your purchases.
 

Finding
Bridget’s beau was a priority for Sally, but not knowing when he was likely to
be at the Castle next was definitely a problem.
  
Sally silently railed again at the owner of
the Castle, the judgmental and censorious Laird, who could just toss a young
maid out, with no thought of how she would find her way in this cold
world.
  
Sally was self-aware enough to
know that her own deep hurt was adding fuel to this anger.
 
She still could not believe that her father
had been willing to exile his only daughter on the basis of public gossip.
 
Taking control of her own life was a balm,
but it couldn’t erase the fact that to her family she was entirely expendable.
 
Never mind that she was innocent of the
charges laid at her door, if the world saw her as tarnished, then tarnished she
was.
   

Her mind went
back, as it was doing with alarming frequency, to the day of the thunderstorm,
and the
very
unexpected events that had transpired in
a cave off the moors.
  
The thought
occurred to her that she was already paying the price for exactly that sort of
behavior, so why shouldn’t she indulge her curiosity and just do it?
  
She had been intoxicated by the touch of
Hugh McLeod; that was the only explanation she could come up with.
 
Not unlike Bridget and her carrier’s lad,
Sally had been completely unable to stop herself from responding to the man’s
touch and, if she was honest, she was intensely curious to try it again.

As she sat atop
her horse, her mind pleasantly caught up in these reminiscences, Sally became
aware of the sound of hooves approaching from behind.
 
Turning Beauty, she saw Hugh McLeod
approaching on his magnificent stallion.
 
She felt her cheeks flush and her heart started to beat uncomfortably
fast. It felt almost as if she had summoned him with her thoughts.
 
Pushing this fancy aside, Sally composed
herself.
  

“Miss
Denlington,” the Earl called when he was close enough.
 
“Are you heading into the village, too?”

“Mr. McLeod,”
she greeted him in turn.
 
“Yes, I wanted
to exercise Beauty, and I do indeed have some purchases to make in the
village.”

“What do you
think of our Scottish countryside?” he asked conversationally, allowing his
horse to drop into a walk beside her.

“I find the
starkness most beautiful.
 
Especially the
moors.” she replied.
 
“And with the sun
shining, who could not be pleased.”

“The weather is
very changeable, I’ll grant you,” Hugh replied, wondering how she would respond
to this oblique reference to the weather the last time they met.

A mischievous
smile crinkled Sally’s eyes, and she surprised him by saying, “Yes, the weather
today is much more conducive to a ride than it was three days ago.”
 
She patted the smooth brown neck of her
horse.
 
“Beauty is much happier today,
too.”

“There are some
definite advantages to being caught in a storm, though,” Hugh murmured
provocatively.

Sally, unused to
being alone with a gentleman, let alone one with whom she had shared those intimate
moments, knew that she should bring this line of conversation to a close.
 
But with her new-found freedom as a
compromised woman, she looked over at her companion, one eyebrow raised.

He was dressed
in a brown tweed riding jacket, buckskin breeches, and his thick, dark hair was
contained at his neck with a brown riband.
 
His eyes were searching her face, a disturbing smile in their brown
depths.
 
Her eyes dropped to his mouth,
and she could remember in every detail the feelings generated by his lips on
hers.
 
Looking up again, she saw a challenging
question in his eyes.
 
She knew that she
should drop her eyes and look away, but what if she didn’t?
 
What was the worst that could happen?
 
That she would act on those feelings
again,
and somehow ruin her reputation further?
 
She was already as compromised as she could possibly
be, so why should she simper and act like an innocent debutante?
  
Her curiosity, whetted by their last
encounter, was bolstered by the very freedom of the fact that she no longer had
a shred of reputation left to her.

So instead she
smiled in a way that she hoped looked more sophisticated than it felt, and replied,
“I will grant you that.
 
But I must admit
to preferring a dry coat and the sun overhead.
 
What is your errand in the village, Mr. McLeod?”

Hugh knew that
he should correct her, and inform her that she should be addressing him as my
lord, or your lordship.
 
But the anonymity
of being plain Mr. McLeod was oddly enjoyable, so he allowed her to continue in
ignorance.
  
“I am executing a commission
for a friend up at the Castle,” he replied.

“Are you a
friend of the Laird’s?”
 
Sally asked,
wondering if there was some way she could turn this to her advantage.
 
Maybe Mr. McLeod could help her find
Bridget’s Robbie.

“I know him,”
Hugh said easily.
 
He looked over at
Sally, and saw a look of disapproval on her lovely features.
 
“Are you acquainted with him?”
 
Hugh asked, his interest
piqued.

“I am not,”
Sally stated baldly.
 
“And I have no wish
to be.”

Intrigued, Hugh
asked, “Has the Earl offended you in some way, Miss Denlington?”

“I’m sorry if he
should be a friend of yours,” Sally informed him.
 
“But I have no patience with those who set themselves
up as if they are without fault, and punish those who have made an honest
mistake.”

“And has the
Earl of Kane done so?”
 
the
Earl queried.

Sally’s quick
temper blazed and her eyes flashed angrily.
 
“I feel strongly on the subject of autocratic and high-handed males.
 
I ask you, if one has been privileged from
birth, and enjoyed every luxury, wouldn’t you think that would make one more
compassionate, rather than completely inflexible and odiously judgmental?”

Hugh scrutinized
her.
  
The wintry day had given her
cheeks a high color, and despite her slight figure, she bristled with
determination.
 
He found the
juxtaposition of delicate beauty and such strong-mindedness entirely
captivating.
  
“And you find the Earl of
Kane to be such a man?”

Sally gave a
rueful laugh. “In truth, I have never met him.”
 
A cart approached on the narrow road, and Hugh was forced to allow his
horse to drop behind.
 
When the road was
clear, he snapped the reigns and surged forward again, bringing his horse
alongside Beauty.

“Then may I ask
upon what you are basing this opinion of him?”
 
he
asked.

Sally smiled at
Hugh.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I am putting you in a difficult position if
you are a friend of the Laird’s.” She said the word as if it was unpleasant to
utter.
 
“What is your destination this
morning, sir?
 
I can see the post office,
and that must be my first stop.”

Hugh felt a
strong unwillingness to bring their conversation to a close.
 
“I have to pick up a package at the posting
house.
 
May I offer you a cup of tea
there, when you have finished your errands, Miss Denlington?
 
We can warm ourselves before tackling the
chilly ride back to our respective houses.”

Sally met his
intent look, and felt her pulse quicken.
 
In her previous life she had never been allowed to spend any time alone
with a man.
 
In fact, the only time she
had been truly alone with a man had been in the cave by the moors, and her
behavior at that time would have confirmed Lady Denham’s worst fears regarding
her daughter’s virtue.
 
If a strong
desire to repeat that wanton behavior was the invariable result of private
conversation with a handsome man,
then
perhaps her
parents had been right to worry about her, she thought impishly.
 
Hugh McLeod, with his handsome face, and his
graceful, athletic seat as he controlled the playfulness of his stallion, was
without a doubt causing a physical response in her own body.
 
Sally found it exhilarating.