Once Upon a Highland Summer (32 page)
Read Once Upon a Highland Summer Online
Authors: Lecia Cornwall
“Fortune!” Georgiana scoffed. “He’ll make a dozen fortunes if he follows what he’s started. He’s smart, but he cannot see what’s truly important.”
Angus looked at her sadly. “Ye canna eat love,
gràdhach
, nor can you roof houses, or feed children with it.”
Georgiana tossed her head. “Love always finds a way, Angus.”
“No it doesn’t. Not for us, it didn’t. Who’s to say he won’t come to love Sophie?”
“Not for us?” Georgiana set her hands on her hips. “And who’s to say this isn’t our second chance?” She left Angus staring at the empty shadows.
C
aroline was packing when Lottie burst into the room. “Happy birthday, Caro!” she cried, and dropped a wrapped parcel on the bed, and gave her aunt a hug.
Caroline smiled. “I didn’t think anyone would remember,” she said.
Lottie beamed. “How could I forget? My birthday is just twelve days after yours.”
“You’ll be an old married woman by then,” Caroline teased, and crossed to the package.
“Yes, I will, won’t I?” Lottie’s smile faded.
“Aren’t you happy?” Caroline asked, putting the gift down again.
“I thought I was. William seemed so kind and charming and—serene. Now I think ‘serene’ may have been the wrong word.”
“Oh?”
Lottie bit her lip. “I’m horribly afraid he’s just dull, and not serene at all, which makes me question if he really is charming and kind, or if I’ve made a dreadful mistake. He is handsome at the least, isn’t he?”
Caroline’s heart went out to her niece. She’d once fancied William herself as the perfect husband. Now she could not imagine anyone else but— She took a breath and stopped that thought in its very dangerous tracks. Tomorrow she’d be gone from Glenlorne, and she’d never see Alec MacNabb again. “Yes, he’s very handsome,” she murmured to Lottie, meaning William.
“I love to dance, but William doesn’t dance. Do you see that as a problem?”
Caroline remembered the way it felt to dance on Midsummer’s Eve, light as a feather in Alec’s arms, her feet bare in the cool grass, her body hot with desire . . . Would she ever dance with anyone else and feel the same thrill in his arms?
“Dancing is not so important,” she lied.
“And William refuses to travel, or to hunt. I wished to go to Paris for our wedding trip, now the city is open again and Napoleon is gone. He told me he gets seasick, and wouldn’t think of such a dangerous journey. Dangerous! Why, my friend Anne Thorndale went to Paris to buy a whole new wardrobe, and she says it’s perfectly wonderful, and quite safe. She didn’t suffer even the tiniest bit of mal de mer,” Lottie said. She reached for the parcel herself, and began to twirl the string between her fingers, studying her betrothal ring, a perfectly respectable if not awe-inspiring diamond hemmed in by fat pearls.
Caroline remembered the ruby ring her mother had left her, and rubbed her finger where it had once sat. She had given it to the gentleman on the street in London the night she fled Somerson House. Would she change that now, if she could go back, stay where she belonged? She knew she would not.
“You traveled here all by yourself, didn’t you?” Lottie asked.
“Yes,” Caroline murmured. “I’m sure you think I was foolish to flee like that. I didn’t think of the dangers I might have faced.” Especially if she hadn’t had the stranger’s advice about the Royal Mail coach, and the coin he gave her for the fare.
“Oh, I know mama says you are quite ruined, and I did think it was silly to run away at night the way you did, but look at you now—I’d say your adventures have been the making of you!”
Or the undoing, Caroline thought. She glanced at the small valise, half hidden by the open door of the wardrobe. It would hold the few gowns she’d purchased in Edinburgh, a book or two, and nothing else. She couldn’t stay, couldn’t watch Alec marry Sophie, promise to love and cherish her all the days of his life. She was sorry she would not be there to stand with Lottie, but she had to go. She would go to Edinburgh or Glasgow, find another job. She would write a letter to Somerson, making good on her promise to renounce her dowry, and cut her ties to her family.
Lottie squeezed the package in her hands, and the paper crackled. “Caroline, I’ve decided not to marry William. Just this moment, in fact. My brother George is going on the Grand Tour. He leaves next month, and I think I’ll go with him.” She jumped to her feet. “Have I shocked you?”
“Frankly yes. Are you sure? What will your parents say?” Caroline said.
“Well, I’ll need a chaperone, of course, besides George—a companion. I thought perhaps you would like to accompany me. Oh Caroline, think of the fun we’ll have. Mama can’t object if you’re with me, and George will be there, with his tutor and his valet.”
Caroline studied her niece’s flushed face, saw the spark in her eyes—determination, delight, and mischief. “Please say yes, Caro!”
Caroline’s stomach tied itself into a knot. It did offer a new destination, a way to forget Alec. She tried to picture herself by Lottie’s side, on a ship, or in Paris, or Italy, and saw only Glenlorne in her mind’s eye. “If this is what you want,” she said slowly.
The string holding the present closed unraveled in Lottie’s fingers, and she looked at the parcel in her lap in surprise, as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Here I am rattling on, and this is your day, and you should be opening your gift.” She handed it to Caroline. “It’s a shawl,” she said before Caroline had even gotten it half unwrapped. “The finest cashmere. It was for my wedding trip, but I can’t bear to wear it now, and I shall buy something new and exotic in Paris or Italy. The colors will look better on you, anyway.”
Caroline held up the lovely shawl. It was moss green, with a deep paisley patterned edging of gold and orange, the colors of the hills of Glenlorne. “Oh, Lottie, it’s lovely, but I really shouldn’t—”
Lottie snorted and snatched it from Caroline’s hands, wrapping it over her shoulders. “Nonsense! You look lovely. It brings out the golden tone of your skin, and the green in your eyes. She fussed with the shawl, wrapping it over Caroline’s hair, tossing the ends over her shoulders. “Oh, you look like a bonnie Highland lass!” she said. “As if you belong here.”
She squeezed Caroline’s hands. “I’d better go and see Mama now. She’ll have just finished breakfast, and be looking forward to lunch. She’s always more approachable on a full stomach. Wish me luck?”
“Luck,” Caroline said. “What about William?”
Lottie turned in the doorway. “Mama’s the hard part. I daresay William will simply find another bride.”
Paris. Italy. The spa towns . . . anywhere, Caroline thought, taking off the shawl and putting it into the valise. “Europe.” She whispered the word as she’d once whispered, “Scotland.” It
was
a destination. Still, she could not rid herself of the feeling that once again, she was running away.
C
aroline watched Alanna gracefully cross the room with a book on her head, her spine straight, her chin high. Megan followed. Sorcha’s book slid to the floor with a bang. “I shall never, ever be able to enter a ballroom like a lady,” Sorcha moaned, as Caroline picked up the book with a smile. “And I’m not sure I want to.”
Muira grinned from where she was sewing by the window where the light was best. She had come to tell the girls their mother had decided to pay an extended visit to a cousin for the sake of her health, and had to leave this very day, since Brodie had also decided to quit Glenlorne. The girls had been surprised, but they had the weddings to look forward to. And if they asked questions later, well, Muira was certain she would think of something to tell them.
“Tis all right, lass, there are plenty of braw men here in the Highlands who won’t find ye wanting, even if ye can’t carry a book on the top of your head,” Muira soothed Sorcha now.
Megan tugged her youngest sister’s braid. “You have years to practice.”
“She’ll need every one,” Alanna said unkindly, spinning in place with the book firmly in place on her head. “Sophie said she’d send for a dancing master for us, and a music teacher. We’re to learn to play the piano, so we can list it as one of our accomplishments. Sophie says a successful debutante must have a long list of accomplishments.”
“I’d rather read books than carry them on my head.” Sorcha sniffed. “And I would rather have useful accomplishments. I can climb a tree, and win a foot race, and bake a pie.”
Alanna rolled her eyes. “Useful if you’re going to marry a one-legged crofter with an apple tree.”
“Don’t tease!” Megan said. “I daresay when Sorcha is older, she will turn out to be the family beauty and marry a prince who will adore her.”
Sorcha stuck out her tongue at her middle sister, and looked barely even pretty.
“Yer face will stick like that, young miss, and I’ll have to boil up a potion of roots and sheep’s feet to set it smooth again,” Muira said.
Jock knocked shyly on the door, looking for Caroline. “There y’are Miss. There’s yet another Englishman here to see ye. He’s in the den, er, library. I know Lady Sophie wants it called the library from now on.”
“It’s the same room it always was,” Muira said sourly. “The room where the laird has always gone to drink and swear with the clansmen, out of hearing of the womenfolk. I don’t know where Alec will go to do that once she’s mistress here.”
Jock shuffled his feet. “All the same, Lord Somerson is downstairs as well, and bid me to tell ye to hie yerself, Miss, if ye’ll forgive me.”
Muira folded her sewing into the basket and smiled at Caroline. “Why don’t I take the lasses down to the kitchen and teach them another useful skill for a suitable wife while ye’re busy? Such as how to make a proper mutton stew. To my mind, that’s a far better way to win a man than dancing, reading or balancing books on yer head all day.”
C
aroline recognized the small man with thinning hair from her mother’s funeral. He jumped to his feet as Caroline entered the room, straightening his sober black coat. Somerson rose more slowly, observing the social convention even as his eyes filled with disdain for his half sister. He hadn’t spoken a word to her in days.
“Good morning, Lady Caroline. Do you remember me? I’m Mr. Rice, from Berwick. I was your father’s man of business in the north, then your mother’s. We met at your mother’s funeral.” He bowed low, and Caroline curtsied. She took in the neat stack of documents on the table and the worn leather case they’d come out of.
“Of course I remember you. How was your journey?” Caroline asked politely. She hadn’t expected him to come personally.
“My journey was quite—” he began, but Somerson interrupted.
“Sit down Caroline, and let’s get this over with.” He turned to Mr. Rice. “I trust you brought a letter as per my instructions for Caroline to sign?”
Mr. Rice turned to Caroline. “It is my understanding from His Lordship’s letter that you wish to renounce your inheritance, my lady.”
Caroline glanced at Somerson, who was glaring at the man of affairs fiercely. “I am her guardian. You may address your comments to me. Caroline, sign the paper and leave the room at once.”
Mr. Rice smiled politely, unafraid of Somerson. “I’m afraid I haven’t brought any such letter, my lord. As Lady Marjorie’s man of affairs, my business is directly with Lady Caroline now. I believe birthday felicitations are in order, my lady?”
“Thank you, Mr. Rice,” Caroline said.
Somerson rose to his feet. “You may go, sir. You have nothing to discuss with anyone but myself. I am the head of this family, and Caroline is my dependent. If there is nothing to sign at this moment, then I will have my own man in London draw up the necessary documents. Good day.”
Mr. Rice did not move. He instead took the top document of the pile of papers. “Not as of today, my lord. I have a copy of Lady Marjorie’s will—your late mother left some very specific instructions. She left you some jewelry.”
“Yes, a little ruby ring she wore every day. She gave it to me before she died,” Caroline said, rubbing the finger where the ring had once sat.
“There are several other pieces, an emerald pin, a pearl necklace with a diamond clasp—”
“If they were gifts from my father, they belong to Countess Charlotte, then my own daughters, not to Caroline.”
“They belonged originally to Lady Marjorie’s own mother, my lord.” Mr. Rice slid the document across the little table toward Somerson. “Now if you’ll recall from your father’s will, my lord, he did leave a number of instructions regarding Lady Caroline’s inheritance. They are restated here, in your stepmother’s will.”
Caroline felt her breath catch in her throat. Somerson pinned the little man with a glare that would put a bird of prey to shame. “She was hardly my stepmother. She was barely older than I was when she married my father.”
“Perhaps not, my lord, but the late earl wanted both his wife and his daughter well cared for upon his demise.”
“Marjorie did not suffer by my hand. After my father died, I gave her a house to live in for her lifetime,” Somerson said.
Caroline recalled the gloomy, ill-repaired manor she had grown up in, as far from London as possible, with no money allotted for clothes or niceties beyond the very basics. Scarcely a month after her mother’s death, Somerson had sold the place without a word to Caroline, and she had been forced to depend on the kindness of neighbors for nearly a year before Somerson summoned her to London and gave her a choice.
“Her Ladyship’s will provides a specific legacy for Caroline,” the man of affairs said pointedly.