Читать книгу The Lady and the Laird - Nicola Cornick, Nicola Cornick - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

Forres Castle, Scotland, February 1812

“LUCY, I NEED you to do me a favor.”

Lady Lucy MacMorlan’s quill stuttered on the paper, leaving a large blob of ink. She had been in the middle of a particularly complex mathematical calculation when her brother Lachlan burst into the library. A gust of bitter winter air accompanied him, lifting the tapestries from the walls and sending the dust scurrying along the stone floor. The fire crackled and hissed as more sleet tumbled down the chimney. Lucy’s precious calculations flew from the desk to skate along the floor.

“Please close the door, Lachlan,” Lucy said politely.

Her brother did as he was bid, cutting off the vicious draught up the stone spiral stair. He threw himself down, long and lanky, in one of the ancient armchairs before the fire.

“I need your help,” he said again.

Lucy smothered her instinctive irritation. It seemed unfair that Lachlan, two years older than she at six and twenty, always needed her to pull him out of trouble. Lachlan had a careless charm and a conviction that someone else would sort out the trouble he caused. That someone always seemed to be Lucy.

They all had their roles in the family. Angus, the son and heir, was stodgy and dull. Christina, Lucy’s eldest sister, was an on-the-shelf spinster who had devoted her life to raising her siblings after their mother had died and now acted as hostess for their father. Mairi, Lucy’s other sister, was a widow. Lachlan ran wild. Lucy had always been the good child, the perfect child in fact.

What a perfect baby, people had said, leaning over her crib to admire her. Later she had been called a perfect young lady, then a perfect debutante. She had even made the perfect betrothal, straight from the schoolroom, to an older gentleman who was a nobleman and a scholar. When he had died before they married, she had become perfectly unobtainable.

Once upon a time she had been a perfect sister and friend too. She had had a twin with whom she shared everything. She had thought her life was safe and secure, but she had been wrong. But here Lucy closed her mind, like the slamming shut of an oaken door. It did no good to think about the past.

“Lucy?” Lachlan was impatient for her attention. He looped one booted leg carelessly over the arm of the chair and sat smiling at her. Lucy looked at him suspiciously.

“What are you working on?” he asked, gesturing to the papers that were scattered across the desk.

“I was trying to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem,” Lucy said.

Lachlan looked baffled. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I enjoy the challenge,” Lucy said.

Lachlan shook his head. “I wouldn’t choose to do mathematics unless I absolutely had to,” he said.

“You wouldn’t choose to do anything unless you had to,” Lucy pointed out.

Lachlan’s smiled widened. He looked as though he thought she had paid him a compliment. “That’s true,” he said. He fixed her with his bright hazel eyes. “How is your writing progressing?”

“I am working on a lady’s guide to finding the perfect gentleman,” Lucy said. She spoke with dignity. She knew that Lachlan was laughing at her. He thought her writing was ridiculous, a mystifying hobby. All the Duke of Forres’s daughters wrote; it was an interest they had inherited from their mother, who had been a notable bluestocking. The sons, in contrast, were not bookish. Lucy loved her brothers—well, she loved Lachlan even though he exasperated her, and she tried to love stuffy Angus—but intellectual they were not.

As if to prove it, Lachlan gave a hoot of laughter. “A guide to finding the perfect gentleman? What do you know of the subject?”

“I was betrothed to such a man,” Lucy said sharply. “Of course I know.”

The light died from Lachlan’s eyes. “Duncan MacGillivray was hardly the perfect gentleman,” he said. “Nor was he the perfect match for you. He was too old.”

Lucy experienced a tight, trapped feeling in her chest. “You are so rude,” she said crossly.

“No,” Lachlan said. “I tell the truth. You only agreed to marry him because Papa wanted you to wed and you were still grieving for Alice and you weren’t thinking straight.”

Alice...

Another cold draught slid under the door and tickled its way down Lucy’s spine. She shivered and drew her shawl more closely about her shoulders. Alice had been dead for eight years, but not a day passed when Lucy did not think of her twin. There was a hollow, Alice-shaped space inside her. She wondered if she would always feel like this, so empty, as though a part of her had been cut out, leaving nothing but darkness in its place. Alice’s absence was like a constant ache, a shadow on the heart, and a missed step in the dark. Even after all this time, it hurt so sharply it could sometimes make her catch her breath. Her childhood had ended the day Alice died.

She pushed the thought away, as she always did. She was not going to talk about Alice.

“The point,” she said, “is that I know what constitutes gentlemanly behavior, and more importantly—” she looked down her nose at her brother “—what does not.”

“You know what constitutes French and Italian pornography, as well,” Lachlan said with a grin, “and your erotic writings have been far more successful and profitable than your other writing. I wonder why you do not write more of them.”

Lucy frowned at him fiercely. “You know full well why I do not! We don’t talk about that, Lachlan. Remember? It’s all in the past and no one is to know. Do you want me to be ruined?”

Lachlan scowled back at her, the two of them reduced to their nursery squabbling for a brief moment. “Of course not. And I haven’t told a soul.”

Lucy sighed. She supposed it was unfair to pin all of the blame on her brother when she had been so recklessly stupid and naive, but there was no doubt that he was untrustworthy. A year ago Lachlan had come to her and begged a favor, much as he was doing now. He needed her help with writing a letter, he had said. It had to be extremely romantic, very sensual, and sufficient to seduce the lady of his dreams into his arms.

Lucy had desperately needed to earn some money, and since she was more articulate than her brother, she had agreed. She had culled some lines from Shakespeare for him and added some poetry of her own. Lachlan had laughed and had said he needed something rather more exciting.

It was then that Lucy had remembered the erotic writings in the castle library. The library had always been a treasure trove for her, and she had scoured its shelves from the time she could read, devouring the vast collection that her grandfather had brought back from the Grand Tour. Then one day, among the weighty tomes of political history and the works of the classical scholars, she had found something a great deal more inflammatory than dry politics: several folios of drawings and sketches of men and women in the most extraordinary erotic poses. Some of the sketches had seemed anatomically impossible to Lucy, but it had been both educational and interesting to see them and she had viewed the pictures with intense intellectual curiosity, even turning the books upside down and sideways at various points to check that she had understood the details correctly.

Alongside the drawing had also been writings, vivid and sensual, equally interesting to the curious academic mind. It was these that Lucy remembered when Lachlan asked for something rather more arousing than Shakespeare. She had used the writings as inspiration. Perhaps she had overdone it. She was not sure. But certainly her brother had had no complaints. He had even told his friends and several of them had come forward to ask for similar assistance in their wooing. Lucy had obliged.

Then it had all gone horribly wrong. The first Lucy had heard of the scandal was at a meeting of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society. Everyone was talking about a mysterious letter writer who helped the young bucks of Edinburgh seduce the women of their acquaintance. Lachlan was apparently locked in a torrid affair with an opera dancer while his friends were likewise setting the town alight with their licentious behavior. One had impregnated and abandoned an innkeeper’s daughter and another had eloped with the wife of the governor of Edinburgh Castle. In all cases the ladies had been wooed into bed with false promises and erotic prose.

Lucy had felt horribly guilty and dreadfully naive that she had not questioned Lachlan’s motives before she had written the letters, nor had she foreseen what the outcome of them might be. Her need for the money had blinded her and she had thought of nothing but that. She could only hope that no one discovered that she had been the letter writer, because if they did, she would be ruined. She had promised herself that there would be no more provocative poetry. It was not the sort of behavior that a well-bred heiress should indulge in, and in the future she would have to make her money from other sources.

Lachlan was watching her. There was a decidedly calculating expression in his hazel eyes. It made Lucy suspicious.

“Anyway,” Lachlan said, smiling winningly, “let’s forget all about that and talk about me.” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it. It made him look charmingly rakish. Lucy thought it a pity that none of her friends were there to be impressed. They all thought Lachlan was delightful, despite the fact that the words selfish and lightweight could have been invented to describe him.

“I’ve fallen in love,” Lachlan said, with the air of someone making a grand announcement.

“Again!” Lucy said. “Who is the fortunate lady this time?”

“It is Dulcibella Brodrie,” Lachlan said. “I love her and she loves me and we want to marry.”

Lucy paused. Miss Dulcibella Brodrie would not have been her first choice as a sister-in-law. Dulcibella was beautiful, but she was also utterly helpless in a completely irritating manner. No doubt that was what had attracted Lachlan to her, but since he was fairly helpless himself, the combination of the two of them would be a recipe for disaster.

“Dulcibella is...very sweet natured,” Lucy said carefully. She prided herself on being polite and she was glad she could find something positive to say. Dulcibella might be a little spoiled and self-centered, and she was drawn to a mirror as a bee was drawn to clover, but she did have her good qualities if one looked hard enough.

Lachlan’s open face suddenly looked as tragic as a rejected spaniel’s. “She’s not free, though,” he said. “She is already contracted to marry Robert Methven. The settlements are all drawn up.”

Robert Methven.

The papers slipped from Lucy’s hand again. She made a grab for them, then straightened up slowly. “Are you sure?” she said. She could feel an unnerving flutter in the pit of her stomach. Her fingers trembled. Her cheeks felt hot. She smoothed the paper automatically.

Fortunately for her, Lachlan was the most unobservant of men and was far too concerned with his own feelings to notice hers. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “It’s a disaster, Lucy. I love Dulcibella. I was going to make her an offer myself. I just hadn’t got around to it, and now Methven has got in first.”

“Lord Brodrie probably wants more for his only child than a younger son,” Lucy said. She kept her gaze averted from Lachlan’s while she steadied herself, while she drew breath.

“But I’m the younger son of a duke!” Lachlan protested.

“And Lord Methven is a marquis,” Lucy said. “He is a better catch.” Her voice was quite steady now even if her pulse still tripped and her body felt heated and disturbed.

Robert Methven was getting married.

She felt light-headed and shocked, and she had no notion why. It was not as though she knew Lord Methven well. Shortly after the night eight years ago when they had met on the terrace at Forres, he had suffered a terrible rift with his family and had left Scotland. He had gone to Canada and was rumored to have made a fortune trading in timber. It had been shortly before Alice had died and Lucy had not paid much attention. She remembered very little from that time other than the smothering sense of grief and the empty ache of loss.

Then Robert Methven’s grandfather had died and he had inherited the title and returned to Scotland. Lucy had seen him a few times recently at the winter assemblies in Edinburgh, but the easy companionship she had found with him that night at Forres had vanished. They had exchanged no more than a few words on the most trivial of topics.

Lucy found Robert Methven physically intimidating, as well. The men in her family were all tall and lean, but Lord Methven was powerfully built as well as tall. His body was hard-muscled, the line of his jaw was hard and the expression in his sapphire-blue eyes was hard. He was overwhelmingly male. That masculinity was so blatant that it was like a slap in the face. Lucy had known nothing like it.

He had changed in other ways too. He was somber and the light had gone from his eyes. All the power and authority Lucy had sensed in him that night was still there, but it felt stronger and darker. Tragedy had a way of draining the light from people. Lucy knew that. She wondered what had happened to Methven to change him.

They had nothing in common now. And yet...Lucy’s fingers clenched. She felt the smooth paper crumple beneath her touch. There was something about Robert Methven. Her awareness of him was acute and uncomfortable. She did not want to think about it because doing so made her feel hot and breathless and prickly all over. It was odd, very odd.

She sat down at her desk, smoothing her papers with fingers that were shaking a little. She was aware of an unfamiliar emotion, a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach, a sensation that felt like jealousy.

I am not jealous, Lucy thought crossly. I cannot be jealous. I am never jealous of anything or anybody. Jealousy is neither appropriate nor ladylike.

But she was. She was jealous of Dulcibella.

Lucy pressed her fingers to her temples. It made no sense. She could not be jealous of Dulcibella. Dulcibella had nothing she wanted. Lucy did not want to marry, and even if she did, Lord Methven in no way constituted her idea of a perfect husband. He was too intimidating and far too much of a man. He was just too much of everything.

“What am I to do, Lucy?” Lachlan asked, reclaiming her attention, holding up both his hands in a gesture of appeal. “Dulcibella would not dare go against her father’s wishes. She is far too delicate to oppose him.”

Delicate was not the word that Lucy would have chosen. Dulcibella was feeble. She had no steel in her backbone. In fact, Lucy had sometimes wondered if Dulcibella had a backbone at all.

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said briskly. “I am sorry, Lachlan.” But you will be in love with another lady in the blink of an eye.

“I need you to write one of your letters,” Lachlan said, sitting forward, suddenly urgent. “I need you to help me persuade her. Please, Lucy.”

“Oh no,” Lucy said. “No and no and no again. Have you been listening to a word I said, Lachlan?”

“I’m sorry about last time.” Lachlan did at least have the grace to look a little shamefaced.

“I don’t expect you are,” Lucy said.

Lachlan shrugged, admitting the lie. “All right. But my intentions are honorable this time, Lucy. I love Dulcibella and I know you would want us to be happy. I want to marry her, Lucy. Please...” He let his words trail away as though he were brokenhearted. Most artistic, Lucy thought.

“No,” she said again. “Apart from anything else, I hardly think that Dulcibella would be persuaded by that sort of letter. She is a very sheltered lady.”

“Well,” Lachlan said, grinning, “you may need to tone it down just a little.”

“No,” Lucy said for the sixth time. She was thinking of Robert Methven. “They are betrothed, Lachlan. It would be wrong.”

“Please, Lucy,” Lachlan repeated, with more pleading in his tone this time. “I really do love Dulcibella.” He threw out a hand. “How can she be happy married to Methven? The man’s a savage! He’s not like me.”

“No,” Lucy said. “He most certainly is not like you.” Robert Methven had none of Lachlan’s refinement. He had rough edges, a roughness that had been rubbing against Lucy’s senses for the past three months like steel against silk. Once again she felt that shiver of awareness tingle along her nerves.

“I can’t help you, Lachlan,” she said. “You should leave well enough alone.”

Lachlan’s face took on the mulish expression Lucy remembered from when he was a small boy who was not getting his own way.

“I don’t know why you would refuse,” he said. “No one would know.”

“Because it’s wrong,” Lucy said sharply. A little shiver rippled over her skin. She knew she had to refuse even if Lachlan’s feelings were genuinely engaged. It was not fair in any way to sabotage Robert Methven’s betrothal. Besides, more practically, Methven was not a man to cross. He was hard and dangerous, and she would be foolish to do anything to antagonize him. If he found out, she would be in a very great deal of trouble.

“You need the money,” Lachlan said suddenly. “I know you do. I heard you telling your maid the other day that your quarterly allowance was already spent.”

Lucy hesitated. It was true that her allowance was already gone, given away to the Greyfriars Orphanage and the Foundling Hospital as soon as it was paid to her. Lachlan did not know, of course. He thought she was as extravagant as he was and saw no shame in that. He had no notion that her remorse over Alice’s death prompted her to give every penny she had to try to make up for a guilt that could never be assuaged.

“I’ll buy you the bonnet with the green ribbons you were admiring in Princes Street yesterday,” Lachlan said, leaning forward.

“I’d rather have the cash, thank you,” Lucy said. For a moment she allowed herself to think of all that she might buy: new clothes and shoes for the children, books and toys, as well.

There was a sliding sensation of guilt in her stomach as she realized that she was going to do as Lachlan asked. She tried to ignore the feeling. She told herself that there could be no danger of Lord Methven discovering what she had done because Lachlan’s name would be on the letters and as long as he held his tongue, no one would suspect her. She told herself that she would be able to buy more medicines for the children at the hospital, as well. The bronchitis was particularly bad this winter.

“How much?” Lachlan asked. He uncoiled his long length from the chair and stood up.

“Ten shillings per letter,” Lucy said briskly.

Lachlan glared. “I’ll write them myself,” he said.

“Good luck with that,” Lucy said, smiling at him.

Lachlan stared at her. She looked directly back and did not waver. She knew Lachlan would cave in. Her will was much stronger than his.

“You could do it out of love,” he grumbled.

Lucy turned her face away. Love was not a currency she dealt in. “Hard cash works best for me,” she said.

“Five shillings, then,” Lachlan said. “And for that they had better be good.”

“Seven,” Lucy said. “And they will be.”

While Lachlan went to fetch the money, Lucy opened the desk drawer to extract a new quill, sharpened it expertly and refilled her ink pot. She would tell Lachlan to copy out the letters in green ink, she thought. The writing had to look as romantic as it sounded.

A shower of sleet pelted the window. The frame rattled. The wind howled down the chimney. Lucy shivered. She could not quite banish the sense of trepidation that had settled like a weight inside her. She could see Lord Methven in her mind’s eye, his face as hard as rock, the dark blue eyes as chill as a mountain stream.

It was wrong of her to help Lachlan take Dulcibella away from him. She knew that. Not only was it morally wrong, but it would also ratchet up the tension between the two clans, a tension that had never really died. She knew that there was some sort of ongoing lawsuit between the Marquis of Methven and her cousin Wilfred, Earl of Cardross. If Lachlan stole Methven’s bride, that would only throw fuel on the fire.

She knew she should throw the quill down and walk away now, but she desperately wanted more money to help the Foundling Hospital. Picking up the quill, she started to write. Everything would be fine, she told herself. She would not get into trouble. She was quite safe. Robert Methven would never find out what she had done.