The Pretender (7 page)

She bent her knees and wiggled her bottom just right, ducking her head down beneath the rim of the urn just as the door across the room came open and everybody surged inside.

“Very well. The little ones have been sent to their rooms,” she heard her mother say. “Now we will all take a seat and discuss this situation calmly.”

If Caro could have seen through the side of the urn, she knew she would have seen the duchess looking at her father when she said this.

“Calmly? Are you out of your mind, woman? Your
daughter has just told us she is married! And to a complete stranger! Even worse than that, to a
Scot!
”

“Alaric, keep your voice down. The windows are open. He’ll hear you.”

“Oh, he’s down in the reception hall, no doubt scrutinizing the china vases with a mind to what he can pilfer. They’re all thieves, you know. Reivers the lot of them!”

“Father, that’s not true,” Elizabeth said. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s not a reiver. He’s a drover.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel any better about the fact that he is now my son-in-law? What I want to know, Elizabeth Regina Drayton, is wherever did you get such a dim-witted idea in your head as to wed the man?”

“She got the idea from me, Father. In fact, I made her do it.”

Bella?

“It seemed the best way, the only way to sort out the situation. Elizabeth had . . .” She hesitated. “Elizabeth took ill at the inn last night. Something she’d eaten . . . or rather something she drank.”

“Elizabeth,” said the duchess, instantly concerned. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, Mother, I’m fine. Well, except for a slight headache . . .”

The duke interrupted, “What the devil did you drink?”

“It was something called
uisge-beatha.
It was a chilly night and the serving girl said it would warm us, but it must have been spoiled. It didn’t taste right, not at all.”

“
Whisky?
You besotted yourself with
whisky
?”

“Apparently so, Father, but you’ll be relieved to know I didn’t like it. Not at all. It made my head feel odd, as if it were no longer attached to my body, and my stomach
became most upset. Afterward, I went straight to bed and stayed there until morning.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you have returned here claiming to be married to a Scot when you should be on your way to Lord Purfoyle’s estate.”

“Because when I awoke in the morning,
he
was in bed beside me.”

“He? You mean this Scot? Are you . . .” Her father drew an audible breath. “Are you telling me you slept with the man?”

The duke broke something then, something that sounded as if it was made of glass and probably cost a lot of money. Inside the vase, Caroline had to cover her mouth with her hand.

“I was delirious!” Elizabeth shouted. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t even remember asking him to come to my bed.”

“
What!
Dear God, Margaret, take out my dueling pistol and shoot me right now.”

“Alaric!”

“Honestly, Father, I don’t think anything happened anyway. We both just fell asleep.”

“Oh, yes. Right. And I’m the King of England.”

The duchess broke in. “Alaric, your face is turning as red as a pomegranate. You will sit down now and calm yourself before we hear anything further.”

“Good God,” the duke croaked, “is there more?”

Caroline listened as her father took several slow, deep breaths. No one else in the room said a word.

Finally Isabella spoke. “Father, Elizabeth had no way of knowing that what she was drinking would cause her
to lose all sense and reason like that. She had never partaken of such strong spirits before.”

“And with good reason. How much of this whisky did Elizabeth actually partake?”

“Oh, only two or three . . .” Elizabeth answered.

“Seven,” Isabella corrected.

“Seven . . . seven what? Sips?”

“Drams,” answered Isabella.

“Drams! Good God in heaven, Elizabeth, ’tis enough to lay a grown man flat . . . which is, obviously, precisely what it did to you, as well, it would seem, as the bloody Scot.”

He said those words—“bloody Scot”—as if they tasted unpleasant.

“So you now see, Father,” Isabella said, “why having Elizabeth and Mr. MacKinnon wed was the only solution.”

The duke sighed. “In the face of those circumstances, Isabella, I believe you did the only thing you could have thought to do. I myself would have had the man strung up from the nearest gibbet, but you’re a lady and such thoughts do not occur to you. There you have it. The question now is what to do about it.”

“I’ve thought about that, Father,” Elizabeth said. “And I think I have come up with a sensible resolution, one that will solve all the problems at once.”

“Oh, you have, have you?”

“Indeed. We can have the marriage annulled.”

“Annulled?” The duke was yelling again. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Why is that so unthinkable? Marriages have been
annulled before. I’m not even certain we actually are married. That ‘parson’ was the inn’s groomsman.”

“You were in Scotland?” asked the duke.

“Yes.”

“There were witnesses to this agreement?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are indeed as married as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had performed the ceremony himself.”

She knew it wasn’t possible, but Caroline would have sworn she could hear Elizabeth frown.

“Well, if it is that effortless for someone to get married, then it must be just as effortless to get unmarried. So we’ll do just that, agree not to be married and be done with it. You all can stand as witnesses. Then Mr. MacKinnon can return to his island and I can stay here and we can forget any of this ever happened.” She paused, then added, “Of course, under the circumstances, Lord Purfoyle wouldn’t likely wish to continue his suit.”

“Oh, and that would just devastate you, wouldn’t it?” The duke chuckled, but it was far from a happy sound. “I always knew you were a shrewd one, but even I couldn’t have thought you’d come up with such an elaborate plan to ensure you’d never have to get married. At least to a proper husband, that is.”

“You think I planned this?” Her outrage sounded genuine.

“But Father,” said Isabella, “I am the one who insisted they get married.”

“Then you were in on it, too.”

“Alaric!”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, Margaret. I wouldn’t doubt that all my daughters are scheming against me. Isabella
probably knew all along about those ridiculous articles she was writing for that damnable magazine, too.”

“It wasn’t my place to tell you, Father.”

“Ha! You see?”

“Bella,” Elizabeth cut in, “you mean it wasn’t you? I thought you had to be the one who told Father . . .”

“It was Mrs. Burnaby who told me.”

“The housekeeper?” Elizabeth and Isabella answered in unison.

“Yes, only after one of the maids found a sheet of foolscap with one of those articles written on it when she was cleaning. You should have been a little more careful in disposing of your early drafts. They brought it to me and I recognized your handwriting, Elizabeth.”

As they continued talking, Caroline, still hunched inside the urn, tried desperately to make sense of all she’d just heard so she could be sure to have the details right when she repeated it all for Mattie and Katie later on.

First, Father had sent Bess off with Bella to marry some man named Lord Purfoyle, but Bess and Bella had returned home with that handsome Scotsman, Douglas Dubh MacKinnon, whom Bess had married instead after she drank some terrible thing called whisky or
uisge-beatha
and woke up with him in her bed. But what was wrong with that? Caroline wondered. She sometimes slept with her dog, Agamemnon, and no one was trying to make her marry him. And just what sort of name was
Dubh
anyway? Had Bess already been in love with the
bloody
Scot? Was that why Father had sent her away? No one had ever told Caro what Bess had done. They’d all just shaken their heads and
tsked
as if telling her might make her want to do it as well.

“Call the bloody Scot in here,” said the duke then, breaking the little girl from her jumble of thoughts. “The rest of you may leave. I wish to speak with the man alone.”

“Alone?” Elizabeth said. “But why, Father?”

“That, Elizabeth Regina, is my business. Now for once in your life, just listen to me, and go.”

“His grace’s study is here, sir.”

Douglas spoke not a word, simply nodded his thanks to the young housemaid who’d delivered him to the closed door down a corridor that had seemed to stretch a mile. He waited while she bobbed a nervous curtsy and then turned, tripping off down the hall. No doubt she would spend the rest of the night telling the other servants how she’d had to walk beside the barbarous Scot whom Lady Elizabeth had brought home—as if he were a vagrant, or a stray dog.

When she’d vanished around the corner, after one last glance at him, Douglas raised his hand and knocked.

“Come in.”

The room on the other side was bright and smelled of history, books, and money. Arcaded bookcases lined the walls, set off by tall windows with rich draperies that fell from the ceiling to the floor under intricate plasterwork archways. Life-sized portraits in gilded frames painted
by artists the likes of Van Dyck and Nicholas Hilliard hung over walls paneled in a rich, polished oak. A huge marble mantel towered at one end. Across the stretch of Turkish carpeting, sitting behind an immense mahogany desk, sat the venerable Duke of Sudeleigh.

Douglas’s first look at the man when they’d arrived out on the carriage drive earlier fit every notion his countrymen had ever held of the Sassenach nobility. Richly dressed, powdered, and bedecked in fancy clothes, the man had obviously never worked a day’s labor in his life.

Once inside the house, however, that opinion was only confirmed.

Every spare bit of space was occupied by knick-knackery of some sort. If a man’s worth was determined simply by the size and number of his possessions, then Sudeleigh must undoubtedly be very valuable indeed. Every convenience but awaited his wish, and if one wasn’t at the ready, there was a bell board attached to the wall behind his desk by which he could summon a servant from any room in the house. Still, despite all this extravagance and wealth, there was a light behind the duke’s eyes, a flicker of something other than bland privilege, that immediately cast him as a force to be reckoned with.

Douglas came into the room, stood in the middle of the carpet, and stared at the man. “You asked to see me, your grace.”

He purposely spoke with a heavier brogue than was his custom, rolling the R in “grace” for added effect.

“Mr. MacKinnon is it?”

Douglas simply nodded.

The duke motioned him to a chair, a dainty, finely carved little piece that looked ridiculous beneath his bulk. Douglas stretched his long legs out in front of him.

“My daughters have explained the circumstances of your, ah, sudden presence in our lives, at least their account of it. I have summoned you here now in hopes of hearing your side of the story.”

“I fear I can tell you little more than they, your grace. I simply stopped to assist the ladies with a broken carriage wheel. Afterward, they offered me a ride to the inn. I’d been walking a long way and I’d lost a goodly amount of daylight in helping with their coach, so I accepted their offer. When we arrived at the inn, I made to take my leave, but the eldest one . . .”

“Elizabeth,” the duke grumbled. “
Your wife.
”

“Aye. She insisted I should have a bit o’ supper for my trouble. Insisted on paying for it, too.”

The duke simply nodded and waited for him to go on. His expression, however, was growing more dour by the second.

“We were in the taproom and it was a bit of a cold night. Lady Elizabeth asked for a dram o’
uisge-beatha
 . . .”

“Whisky! You gave my daughter whisky to drink?”

“I didna give her anything, your grace. I tried to warn her against it, even, but she wouldn’t listen. She was very determined.”

The duke expelled an audible breath. He obviously knew his daughter well. “Go on.”

“I could see she was partaking too much of the drink.” Douglas leveled the duke a stare. “I’m afraid she fell into a bit of a swoon.”

“A stupor is more likely.” The duke’s mouth grew strained above his laced cravat.

“The other one, Lady Isabella, became alarmed. She thought her sister could be mortally affected, but I assured her she would be all right come the morn. I helped to carry her up to her room and then I left, but when I went back down to the taproom, I found Lady Elizabeth’s shoe lying on the stairs. It must have fallen when we carried her up from the taproom. So I thought to return it to her.”

“Just like bloody Cinderella,” the duke grumbled.

Douglas looked at the man. “That’s precisely what she said, as well.”

“That still doesn’t explain how it is you came to be in her bed, sir.”

Douglas nodded. “When I brought the shoe to her room, she was awake.”

“Elizabeth? After all that whisky?”

“Aye, I was just as startled as you are, your grace. She asked me to come in. She seemed a wee bit skittish of being alone.”

“It’s the dark. She’s afraid of it. Has been nearly all her life, although she’d never dare admit it.” Sudeleigh shook his head. “It has been ever since she was a child and got herself locked in a trunk while playing hide-and-go-seek with her sister. Even now I find her in this room late into the night, curled up in that chair by the fire after having fallen asleep while reading.”

Douglas glanced behind him to the overstuffed chair the duke had indicated. An image of Lady Elizabeth as a child came to his mind, hair the color of fire, that
stubborn chin, tucked up against the cushions of the chair. It tugged at him, the vulnerability of it.

He turned back to the duke. “I could see she was in a bit of a state, so I stayed, thinking to leave as soon as she fell asleep. Tha’s the last thing I remember before waking the next morn in bed. In
her
bed. When Lady Isabella found us, she of course assumed the worst.” Douglas leveled the duke a stare. “I didna touch your daughter, your grace. I swear upon it. But if I didna agree to wed her, Lady Isabella would have had me thrown in the gaol. As your grace is undoubtedly aware, these are perilous times in Scotland. If the English authorities there thought I had wronged an Englishwoman . . .”

The duke sighed, nodding. “The king’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, has spared nothing in his retaliation against the Jacobites for the rebellion. I have little doubt you would have been killed.”

The duke sat in his chair for several moments, obviously chewing over the tale. He drummed his fingers against the desktop, his eyes fixed on the feather quill sitting aslant in his inkwell. The clock on the wall behind him ticked off several minutes. A door closed somewhere out in the hall. After a time, he got up from the desk and walked across the room, stopping at the near window to peer out at the grounds. He didn’t say a word. Douglas simply sat, waiting for the man to come to terms with this most unexpected and unwanted turn of events.

Finally, the duke turned. “She wants me to arrange for an annulment, you know.”

Douglas looked at him, saying nothing.

“It would take an Act of Parliament, or maybe even a
royal decree, but I have the king’s ear and I would be willing to attempt it. For her. I would do anything for my daughter, and she knows this. What I need to know now is how much you would want to agree to that.”

Douglas looked at him, not sure he understood. “How much, your grace?”

“Money, MacKinnon. Name your price. How much will it cost me to secure your agreement to an annulment? It does help matters quite a bit if both the bride
and
the bridegroom want out of the thing.”

Sudeleigh had left the window as he talked, circling the room to his chair. He took up his quill and started to scribble something out, a bank draft, all but waiting for Douglas to furnish the amount.

Douglas felt his jaw tighten. “I dinna want your money, your grace.”

The duke looked taken aback. “If you’re thinking to get more from a dowry than what I will pay outright, you’re in for a sorry bit of disappointment. There is a stipulation that any dowry will be forfeit if my daughters should marry against my wishes. Come now, man, surely there must be something else. Everybody wants
something.
Look around you, Mr. MacKinnon. You can see I’m a very wealthy man. Any shrewd man would take advantage of such a situation.”

Douglas’s voice lowered to nearly a growl. “I’m not such a man.”

The duke quietly replaced his quill in its holder. “So if not money, then something else perhaps? Artwork? Land?”

Standing his full six feet and three across the other side of the desk, Douglas stared down at the man.
Always the Sassenach thought he could buy a Scotsman’s honor. It was as if it was beyond their comprehension that some things were simply out of reach of their pocketbooks. As he stood there, anger stewing, a thought occurred to Douglas, a way to effectively turn the tide in his favor.

What price, he wondered, would a Sassenach place on his own honor?

“Very well, your grace. I would ask your sponsorship.”

“I beg your pardon? Did you just say you wanted my
sponsorship?
”

“Aye.” Douglas lowered himself into the chair again, leaning fully against its spindly arms as he contemplated his inspiration.

“You’ve the king’s ear, you say? Well, for me the man has been all but deaf. I’ve spent the past several months in London seeking an audience with King George in order to plead for the return of my family’s lands, lands that were confiscated by the Crown after the last Jacobite rebellion.”

“So you are a Jacobite?” He might as well have said he was Lucifer.

“I didna say that. My father, however, was a Jacobite and came out for the Old Pretender both in the ’15 and again in ’19. Because of his part in the rebellions, he lost my family’s home to the Crown. But my father is dead now, died in France where he’d been in exile for nearly these thirty years past, and those lands are by rights now mine. I’ve worked nearly all my life to see them restored. Archibald Campbell assured me that if I didna
come out for the Bonnie Prince this time, I would be certain to receive them back.”

“Campbell? You are acquainted with the Duke of Argyll?”

“It was his grace who recommended I go to London to seek an audience with the king. I did, but I was left waiting for days, then weeks.”

The duke looked at him. “It would seem to me that Argyll sought more to distance you from the Highlands, MacKinnon, and prevent your taking the side of the Young Pretender.”

Douglas frowned. The same idea had occurred to him. He hadn’t at all liked being made into such a pawn. He went on, “When I heard tell of the Jacobites’ final defeat, I expected then the king would grant me an audience so I could finally present my petition. But still he would not see me, and so I waited more, until I received word calling me back to Skye.” Douglas braced himself against his deepest emotions as he said, “I’m told my brother had been killed at Culloden.”

For the briefest of moments, Sudeleigh appeared genuinely moved. He shook his head. “I am sorry.” Then he sat with his hands folded before him, priming himself for his next words. “So, in exchange for my daughter’s freedom, you seek my intervention with the king?”

Douglas inclined his head. “You asked me to name my price, your grace. This is mine.”

The duke sat back.

Douglas simply waited.

Finally, the duke spoke. “Mr. MacKinnon, I—”

He paused, his attention suddenly focused on a rather large urn that stood in the far corner of the room. He got
up from his desk and crossed the carpet to it. Then he looked inside.

“Caroline Henrietta Drayton! What do you think you are doing in there?”

A tiny voice replied from inside the urn. “Please, Papa, don’t be cross. I just wanted to know what was happening. You never tell me anything . . .”

The duke took a deep breath, then let it out. “Well, so now you do. Now get yourself out of there before I—”

“But I can’t, Papa,” she sobbed. “I’m . . . I’m stuck!”

In the next moment, the child began to wail, a plaintive sound that echoed inside the massive urn. The duke reached a hand inside to try to free her, but the more he struggled, the louder she wailed, no doubt squirming her way more thoroughly into a knot as she did.

Soon, the duke was shouting. The child was screaming, and Douglas sat back and simply watched. The door across the room burst open and the rest of the family, alarmed by the clamor, came charging inside. In moments it was pandemonium.

One of the daughters, Douglas couldn’t remember her name, went to the bell board and began tugging on them—
ding, ding, ding
—one after the other, jerking them all in hopes of summoning help.

A small spaniel came scampering into the room and began to bark and prance and yowl about everyone’s feet.

Someone shouted, “Agamemnon!”

Another burst out, “She’s turning quite blue!”

Unable to stand the chaos any longer, Douglas got up, took his pistol from his waistband, and strode across the room.

“Father! That Scottish man is going to shoot Caro! Stop him!”

They all turned and screamed as one. Douglas stood back, lifted his hand, and smashed the butt of his pistol against the side of the urn, cracking it open like an egg.

The little girl tumbled out, her face nearly purple from crying. She ran straight into her mother’s waiting arms, collapsing against the duchess’s skirts in a sobbing, terrified ball of child.

Everyone else fell silent, staring at Douglas in utter disbelief.

Until the duke roared a moment later, “Are you out of your mind, man? That was a Ming. A one of a kind! And it cost me a bloody fortune!”

“Actually, your grace,” Douglas said calmly, eying the broken pieces of the urn, “it was Japanese. Imari, I believe. A nice piece, aye, but not nearly as valuable as a Ming.”

“Alaric,” said the duchess as she smoothed a hand over Caroline’s curls to calm her, “the man just saved your daughter’s life. I should think a show of gratitude would be more appropriate than screaming at him.”

The duke was staring at Douglas, dumbfounded. Finally, he said, “Yes, right. My apologies, MacKinnon. Thank you for reacting so quickly.”

Douglas ignored him. He turned instead toward the duchess and squatted down beside where she held Caroline tightly in her arms. “Are you all right now, lassie?”