Seduced By A Scot

“How can you be certain?” she asked tearfully.

“Because I’m a man, aye? I know how a man thinks in moments of raw desire.” He watched the twin puffs of red bloom in her cheeks. “He was no’ thinking of the rest of his life, you may trust me. When he thinks of you, he thinks of compatibility and the many happy years before him spent in complete conjugal felicity.”

That might have been too much, he thought lazily.

Miss Garbett sniffed again. “I suppose I could give him one more chance, aye? But I’ll no’ give Maura another chance! Never! Donna even ask it of me.”

“I would never,” he assured her.

“But you will,” she said tearfully. “Because my father esteems her verra much. More than me.”

“He could no’ possibly,” Nichol said soothingly. “You must believe me, Miss Garbett—your father likes the ironworks deal far better than Miss Darby. And he loves you much more than that.”

She straightened in her seat and with a weary sigh, she looked to the window. “Is the Cadell house in England really as big as a palace?”

Problem solved. Nichol rose to his feet. “Bigger. Eighteen chimneys in all.”

“Eighteen,” she murmured.

From there, Nichol walked into the small study to speak to Mr. Adam Cadell. Although he was twenty years, he had not quite yet grown into his gangly arms and legs. He eyed Nichol warily.

“Well, then,” Nichol said, and went to the sideboard to help himself to port. He poured one for the lad, too. “You’ve gotten yourself into a bloody fine predicament, aye?”

The young man looked uncertainly at the port, but took it, and downed it with unnecessary determination. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

“Do you love Miss Darby, then?”

The lad colored. The knot at his throat dipped with his hard swallow. “Of course not.”

Of course you do. Nichol sipped casually at his port, then asked, “What is the size of Miss Garbett’s dowry, by the bye?”

“Why?” the young man asked, and when Nichol didn’t answer, he fidgeted nervously with the hem of his waistcoat. “Quite large,” he said in a manner that seemed to suggest he thought he’d be asked to forfeit it.

“Large enough to build a house in town?”

“London?”

“Aye, London, if you like. Edinburra. Dublin.” He shrugged.

Mr. Cadell’s brows dipped with confusion. “What has that to do with this wedding?”

“I should think it obvious.”

The lad looked at him blankly. Nothing was obvious to him but his raging lust.

“If you were to build or purchase a house in any of those towns...you would undoubtedly meet many pretty debutantes who would be eager to befriend your wife, aye?”

Adam Cadell kept his gaze fixed on Nichol.

“Scads of them,” Nichol added for emphasis.

The young man sank down onto the settee and clasped his hands together before him. Nichol had his full attention. “I donna understand.”

Nichol put aside the port. “What I am suggesting, Mr. Cadell, is that you get your heir, then live your life. She will have the bairn she wants, the house she wants, all the gowns she wants, and you will have...” He made a flourish with his hand. “Society, aye? You will save your father’s important business arrangement and everyone will be made happy once again.”

“Ah,” Adam Cadell said, and slowly nodded. His eyes brightened. And then dulled. “But Sorcha will not have me, not with the ward about.”

So now Miss Darby was merely the ward, was she? “She is no’ here at present,” Nichol pointed out.

“No, but she’ll come back. Mr. Garbett is right fond of her, he is. He’ll not leave her put away. She’ll be part of this family yet.”

Nichol pondered that. “If the ward was put in a circumstance—one that Mr. Garbett would approve, naturally, but one that would keep her from this house for the foreseeable futur—could you see your way to making a proper apology to your fiancée?”

“Yes,” the young man said, nodding enthusiastically. “Of course. Miss Darby will be utterly forgotten.”

“Then leave it to me,” Nichol said, and extended his hand.

Mr. Cadell took it with the grip of a small child and shook it weakly. “Thank you, Mr. Bain.”

The solution, Nichol realized, was one that would solve two problems at once. This was perhaps the easiest thing he’d tackled in fifteen years.

He left the Garbett house with a bounce in his step, and returned to the inn in Stirling where he was residing. There, he penned a letter to Dunnan Cockburn, the former client and someone Nichol might consider a “friend.” Nichol didn’t have friends, really. For one, he never stayed anyplace for long. Two, he had learned at an early age to keep his thoughts to himself so they’d not be used against him. And three, he’d discovered that friendships relied on the ability of one to share feelings. He did not share his, and as a result, he had few friends.

He supposed he might count Lord Norwood as a friend. He’d met the earl in the course of his work for the Duke of Montrose. Norwood was the uncle of the new Lady Montrose, and had been either amused or impressed with Nichol’s handling of her and Montrose’s business. Whatever the reason, he had kept Nichol close and seemed to enjoy his company, although he did frequently dispatch Nichol to help his influential friends.

Nichol counted Dunnan simply because they’d spent so much time in each other’s company. Dunnan was eager to please and possessed a good humor, in spite of his considerable troubles. He resided in a sprawling estate with his widowed mother, and while he’d conquered his gambling problem, he and Nichol had both agreed that he might be less tempted to engage in such behavior if had he a proper wife to comfort and advise him and frankly, to keep an eye on him.

“You’ll find a wife, then, will you?” Nichol had asked the last time he’d seen Dunnan.

“Oh, I will, I will,” Dunnan had assured him. “It is on the very top of my list of things that simply must be done.”

Unfortunately, the last he’d heard, Dunnan hadn’t been successful in his quest. So this seemed the perfect arrangement for all involved—Dunnan needed a wife. The temptress needed a place in this world that was out of sight of the young lovers but one that would meet with Mr. Garbett’s approval. Miss Darby would be well cared for and, Nichol suspected, honored by her husband. Doted upon. Smothered with affection. Dunnan seemed quite eager to have a wife.

Nichol sent off his letter, then spent the next two days awaiting a reply in the company of a bonny little wench who left scratches on his back.

Dunnan’s reply was an exuberant Yes. If you recommend her, Mr. Bain, I will consider myself the recipient of very good fortune and shall open my arms, my heart and my home to her.

Precisely the reception Nichol had expected from a man who was overly enthusiastic about things as mundane as perfectly toasted toast points. In this case, he thought Dunnan might have been a little more circumspect, as he’d not even laid eyes on the lass, and matrimony tended to be for life. But that was not the problem he’d been hired to solve. He’d been hired to solve the problem of the ward, and he was very pleased with himself for having done a fine job of it.

It had gone so well, in fact, that Nichol was considering carving out a bit of time to call on the brother he’d not seen in many years. The distance between them, both literally and figuratively, had been weighing on Nichol of late. He had a soft spot in his heart for Ivan. His brother resided at their family home, not far from Stirling—or he had the last time they’d corresponded. Unfortunately, Nichol’s letters in the last few years had gone unanswered, the messengers sent away.

Nichol wasn’t entirely certain why, but he was entirely certain he would never know if he did not go to his brother himself. It would be a shock to Ivan, as it had been more than a dozen years that Nichol had been gone from home. That was another matter entirely, one that had no easy resolution. But where Ivan was concerned, Nichol would have liked to understand what had happened.

Perhaps now was the time to see him. Perhaps things had fallen into place for that very reason.

But first things first. Nichol said goodbye to the wench, hired a lad to act as his groom, then rode out to explain to Mr. Garbett and Mr. Cadell his plan to mend this rift between families once and for all.

As he suspected, his plan was welcomed by everyone, with the singular exception of Mrs. Garbett, whose thirst for vengeance apparently knew no bounds. She believed that Miss Darby should not be allowed to enjoy the privilege of marrying well, but faced with the prospect of her husband’s ward being returned to them, reluctantly agreed to the scheme.

By week’s end, Nichol and Gavin, his groom, were provisioned for several days of travel and on their way to a manor near Aberuthen to retrieve Miss Darby.

By noon the following day, they’d reached their destination. Fragile flakes of snow were whispering down from the sky, scarcely visible in the light of a weak sun that peaked in from between the clouds. The lad was shivering in his saddle, even though Nichol had tossed him his plaid to drape over his coat. “Still with me, Gavin, are you?” he called over his shoulder.

“Aye, sir.”

“We’ll be there soon enough,” he assured him as they rode out of the small village of Aberuthen, armed with Garbett’s directions to the Rumpkin abode. A half hour later, they arrived.

Nichol had expected the house to be something on par with the Garbett house, but was unpleasantly surprised to find a much smaller house, one that could scarcely be called a manor, and one that looked in serious need of repair. It had a single vine-covered tower at one end, and a house appended to it shaped like a box, as if the builder had struck out to build a castle, and had changed his mind in favor of a smaller house midway through.

A weak trail of smoke rose from only one of four chimneys, and Nichol could see at least four panes of glass had been broken and replaced with wood. He and Gavin came off their mounts and stared up at the house. No one came to greet them. Not even a dog.

Gavin looked at Nichol expectantly.

“Aye,” Nichol said to the lad’s unspoken question. “I’ll see if I can rouse someone, then.” He handed the reins of his mount to Gavin and nodded in the direction of a stable or barn—another dilapidated building. “Feed and water the mounts. There is food in the bag for you, aye? Eat. Warm yourself. We’ll ride out as soon as all is settled here.”

With the leads of the two horses in hand, Gavin trudged off in the direction of the building.

Nichol pulled his greatcoat around him and looked again at the house, taking in the yellowed weeds that grew under the darkened windows. Had it been abandoned? That would be an unwelcome twist to his plan. With a grimace, he started for the door.

On the doorstep, he used the brass knocker three times with no response. He had about decided that the house was indeed empty when he heard the sound of someone fumbling on the other side of the door, which was followed by the door suddenly swinging open. A man, holding a lamp aloft, peered at Nichol. He was wearing a dressing gown over a sleep shirt that was stained with spilled food. The man was obese and stood with his legs braced wide apart, apparently to hold his girth aloft. He had not been shaved, and long scraggly hair floated about his head and shoulders. Even more hair sprouted from his ears.

Nichol had to swallow down his surprise—it was nearly two in the afternoon and the man looked as if he’d been roused in the middle of the night.

“Come for the lass, have you?” he asked gruffly.

Nichol couldn’t say how he’d guessed it. “Aye, I have.”

The man stuck out his hand, palm up. “I’ll have the money first, then.”

Diah, but it would appear that Garbett’s cousin was a boor. “May I come in? It’s rather cold.”

The man grunted. He stepped back and bowed with mock deference as Nichol swept past him into a hall crowded with cloaks and boots and stacks of peat, of all things.

The man closed the door, then shuffled into a room just off the hall.

Nichol followed, but he felt a wee bit as if he was entering at his own peril. The room, a dining room, was disgusting. It reeked of spoiled food and dog feces, which, when Nichol glanced down, were scattered about the floor. Uneaten food had been left to rot in bowls around the table, attracting flies even in the cold. Two dogs lay at the hearth. One of them, a long-legged lanky thing, lazily pushed himself up and wandered over to have a sniff of Nichol before returning to his place at the hearth.

Nichol glanced around him and asked, “Has your housekeeper died, then, Mr. Rumpkin?”

“Amusing,” the man said. “Has my cousin sent you to entertain me, or to compensate me for keeping the bampot?” He held out his hand again.

Nichol withdrew the pouch of coins from his coat and put them in Mr. Rumpkin’s outstretched palm. Mr. Rumpkin, in turn, set aside the lamp, opened the purse and dumped the coins onto the table, quickly counting them, and biting into one to assure himself it was gold. When he was satisfied, he pointed to the stairs across the hall. “She’s up there, she is. Barricaded herself in.”

Nichol could scarcely blame her. “How long?”

“Two days,” he said gruffly. When Nichol didn’t respond due to his surprise, Rumpkin glanced up at him. “Och, donna look at me in that manner! I sent food up to her but she’ll no’ touch it.”

No doubt she’d feared contagion of the plague. Nichol couldn’t believe Mr. Calum Garbett had sent his ward to this hell, of all places. His conscience demanded that he remove the lass from here as quickly as possible. “Which room?”

“The tower,” Rumpkin said grumpily, and heaved himself into a chair at the table, picked up a spoon, and resumed eating whatever was in a bowl there.

Nichol turned away before he gagged. He stepped out into the hall, over a block of peat, then jogged up the stairs and paused on the landing. There was only one door to his left. Sitting outside the door was a tray of food that had been covered with a cloth.

He strode down the hall and knocked firmly on that door. “Miss Darby, please do open the door. I am Mr. Nichol Bain and I’ve been sent by your benefactor, Mr. Garbett.”

Several moments passed before he heard movement. He waited for the door to open, glancing around that dark hall to perhaps identify the source of the odor he smelled up here, and was abruptly startled by the crash of what sounded like glass against the other side of the door. Had the lass just hurled something at the door?

Nichol put his hands to his hips and studied the door, thinking. He stepped forward, knocked a little more softly. “Miss Darby...lass. Mr. Garbett has sent a proposition for you that I am confident you will want to hear. He should like to see you removed from this...place as soon as possible, aye? Open the door. Please.”

Silence.

He braced his hands on either side of the door. He had not anticipated having to convince her to leave. He would think she’d come bounding out of the room, her bags packed, grateful for the opportunity to flee. “On my word, what I have to tell you is better than anything you will find here.”

He heard the scrape of something heavy against the floor and realized she was pushing something that sounded like a heavy piece of furniture against the door.

“I warned you, I did,” came the man’s voice from behind him. Nichol glanced over his shoulder. Mr. Rumpkin had come up the stairs with a bottle in one hand. He put that bottle to his lips and took a long swig before saying, “Bloody heathen, that one.”

Nichol turned back to the door and decided to try authority. “Enough of this, Miss Darby, aye? Your benefactor is quite eager to arrive at a solution for you, and what he proposes will surely satisfy you. But you must open the door to hear it.”

Silence.

Nichol was feeling his patience leak from him, and he never lost his patience. He tried the door, but as he suspected, it was bolted shut. He slammed his hand against it in an uncharacteristic display of frustration. “Miss Darby, I must insist you come out at once!” he said sternly.

He heard something and pressed his ear to the door. Was he imagining it, or did he hear a low laugh from the other side of that door?

He definitely heard another chuckle behind him.

Patience deserted Nichol altogether. He prided himself on his ability to stay completely calm when others were at sixes and sevens—it was necessary to the sort of work that he did. But this annoyed him. He could feel the uptick of his heartbeat, the surge of heat to his neck. He would not be treated in this way by a young woman with nothing to recommend her, with no one to help her but him. He would not accept her bad manners in light of what he meant to do for her. He whirled away from the door.

Mr. Rumpkin was still standing there, still drinking. He dragged his sleeve across his mouth and said, “Told you.”

Nichol squeezed around him, then strode down the stairs.

He had also learned in his many years of solving problems that if one avenue for resolution closed, there was always another. The trick was to find it.

And oh, he would find it.

CHAPTER THREE

MAURA BRACED HER hands against the door and leaned in, pressing her ear against the rough wood, listening to footsteps receding.

When she couldn’t hear them any longer, she pushed away from the door and smiled wryly to herself. How dare Mr. Garbett send someone for her? How dare he not come himself to deliver his apology? Did he truly believe she would simply walk out of this spot of hell with a stranger? Go meekly along after all that had happened? Not without an apology, she would not, and she felt quite determined to never leave this room until she had it.

Except that she was even more determined to leave this wretched place, just as soon as she figured out how. She would not remain one night longer under Mr. David Rumpkin’s roof than was absolutely necessary.

Oh, how she despised that man! At first, she’d tried to make the best of it, and though she could hardly stomach her surroundings, she’d tried to be pleasing and accommodating. Just as she’d tried when she’d been taken in by the Garbetts.

On his deathbed, her father had told her to always be kind, to be grateful to the family that would take her in, to be as accommodating as he knew she could be. He’d reminded her that she had no standing in this world, and her existence depended on the benevolence of a man who was not her father. Maura had tried to be all of the things her father had recommended, but she was not their kin, and Mrs. Garbett had hated her from the moment she’d laid eyes on her. Mr. Garbett had been indifferent to her for the most part, even though from time to time he would defend her. Still, Maura had always believed Mr. Garbett liked her. Now she believed he had been precisely what he’d shown her: indifferent.

Given her experience in Stirling, perhaps she should have known that being grateful and accommodating would not serve her here, either. Rumpkin had shown himself almost at once to be an impossible, slovenly beast with no regard for her or that hapless lass who came from Aberuthen to cook his stews.

Still, she might have born it. She’d even had thoughts of tidying up the house a bit for him, as she was reluctant to sit on any seat. But it was Rumpkin’s drunken pawing of her that had prompted her to barricade herself in the room. She’d been caught completely off guard by it—he’d come up behind her, had put one hand on her arse, another on her breast and his greasy mouth on her neck.

A shudder ran through her as she recalled it.

Maura had found a strength she had not known she possessed in that moment. She had shoved the mountain of a man with all her might, and he’d stumbled backward, falling into his chair. “Donna be a shrew,” he’d slurred, and as he’d tried to lever himself to his feet she had fled to her room at the top of the stairs, had bolted the door shut, then had pushed a bureau in front of it for good measure.

The next day she’d had to remove the bureau to accept the bit of food the lass had brought her and left outside her door. She’d taken the bread, had left the bowl of stringy stew untouched.

Oh right, she’d almost forgotten—she was starving just now.

Maura turned away from the door and looked at her prison. She had a small stack of books that were keeping her occupied, but which she’d soon finish. She was running out of wood for the hearth, her clothes needed washing and she’d lost all manner of decency. The clothes she’d been wearing the night he’d put his hands on her were discarded onto the floor, where they would remain, unless she resorted to burning them for warmth. She hadn’t bothered to dress her hair or don a gown over her stomacher and petticoat in days.

She fell onto the chaise longue at the end of the bed, and stared morosely at the ceiling with its peeling paint. She couldn’t survive in here much longer. Last night, she’d concocted an elaborate plan in her head, whereby she would will herself to make it to spring when the days would be warmer. She could simply walk out of this house once Mr. Rumpkin had fallen into unconsciousness with his fingers wrapped tightly around a bottle. But then she’d grown sullen, for spring was too far away, and there was an entire winter to endure.

She needed to devise another, better plan.

She had only a few coins, some shoes that were worthless for anything other than dancing or strolling around manicured gardens, one decent gown and one serviceable gown. The third gown she’d been allowed to leave Stirling with was the one lying in a heap on the floor.

As she lay there contemplating, she heard a sound that she would have thought was a rat scurrying by had it not come from outside the window. She slowly sat up, staring at the window. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t, this Mr. Nichol Bain. Maura shot up from the chaise and hurried to the window. She opened it slightly, just enough to see out.

All she could see was an auburn head of hair as the man picked his way up the thick vines that covered the tower.

Bloody bounder. Mr. Garbett must have paid him handsomely to ferry her off to yet some other hell. She closed the window and latched it shut. If he thought she would open it to him, he was a fool. She went back to the chaise and plopped down onto her back, one bare foot on the moldy carpet, one arm slung across her body, waiting for the inevitable moment that he pounded on the window demanding entrance. She hoped he fell and landed on his arse. She hoped his fingers ached so much that it brought a tear to his eye.

She did not expect him to punch his fist through the glass, but that’s what he did, shattering the pane into a rain of chunks. That same fist reached through the opening for the latch and swung the window open. Maura was so stunned by this that she couldn’t move, and watched, dumbfounded, Mr. Nichol Bain’s acrobatic entry into her room. He paused just inside, brushed off his clothes, ran his hand over his bobbed hair, and then leveled a gaze on her that suggested he was quite perturbed at having to make an entry in this manner.

Neither of them said a word. Maura didn’t know what stunned her more—his bold entrance or his fine looks. His eyes were the palest green, his hair the shade of autumn. He stood well over six feet, and broad shoulders that looked even broader in a greatcoat tapered into a trim waist. He was perhaps one of the most handsome men she had ever seen.

But his expression was thunderous as he surveyed her lying there—she was still incapable of movement—and said, in a deeply timbred voice, “Feasgar math.”

He had just wished her a good afternoon in Gaelic. Maura stared at him. Had he come from the Highlands, then?