The Last Debutante Read online

  “ ’Tis indeed a mystery to us all, Laird.”

  Jamie had no interest in the mystery, however. He was too focused on his own troubles.

  When he awoke the next morning, his dogs were gone. He drank more of the liquid, had more of the salve applied to his wounds, and slept again. He was awakened later by Geordie pacing about his room, his slate in one hand. The moment he noticed Jamie awake, he thrust the slate at him. She go.

  Jamie gingerly eased himself up. “Go where?”

  Hel.

  “I grant you it’s tempting, but she’s our guarantee against the thousand pounds we’ve lost.”

  Geordie’s face darkened. He walked in a circle, dragging his fingers through his dark brown hair before writing on his slate, underscoring it several times over—Jamie had learned to recognize when that was happening—and then thrust the slate at Jamie again. Vxen.

  “Aye, I am well aware how vexing the situation is,” Jamie said. “Avoid her, Geordie. It’s the only way.”

  When he awoke the day after that, his stomach was growling fiercely; his head was heavy, but from too much sleep. He sat up and saw Duff sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed, reading.

  Jamie looked about, blinking, mentally taking stock. For the first time since being shot, he felt his old self. The pain had receded, and in its place was a dull ache. Dull enough that he wanted out of his infernal bed.

  “Back to the land of the living, eh?” Duff said without looking up from his book.

  “Aye,” Jamie said. “What the devil has happened to my dogs?”

  Duff snorted and closed his books. “Donna concern yourself with them, Laird. Two more traitorous hounds I’ve no’ met.”

  “Traitorous?”

  “Never mind them. There’s much that needs your attention. Shall I fetch Rory?”

  “No,” Jamie said, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Bring me Young John,” he said, referring to his butler.

  “Aye,” Young John said, appearing from the adjoining dressing room. He held a stack of lawn shirts in his hand.

  “Give a hand, then. I want out of this bloody bed.”

  Duff grinned as he heaved himself out of his chair. “That’s about bloody time.” Duff was not the sort of man who had much patience for lying about. If Jamie were a betting man, he’d wager that Duff had done a fair amount of pacing these last few days, alongside Geordie.

  With Young John’s help, Jamie dressed in buckskins, a lawn shirt, and a waistcoat. He shooed Young John away when the butler presented neckcloths and coats to him, as he was ravenous and could think of nothing other than breakfast.

  As Jamie headed downstairs, pleased that he could walk without searing pain, he caught the scent of ham. He knew that would be accompanied by haggis, black pudding, and eggs.

  His mouth was watering.

  “Aye, good to see you up on your feet again, Laird,” Mrs. Murray, Dundavie’s head cook, called out to him, having spotted him as she made her way out of the dining room with an empty platter.

  He smiled and nodded at her as he walked into the morning dining room.

  His brother Geordie was present. He wasn’t eating but was leaning across the table, his head propped on his hand.

  “Madainn mhath,” Jamie greeted him.

  Geordie sat up. He picked up his slate and wrote something, which he held up to Jamie.

  Jamie paused to squint at it. “What is that? Gaelic or English?” He continued on to the sideboard, where he picked up a plate and began to fill it. From the corner of his eye he saw Geordie wipe the slate clean with his sleeve. By the chalky look of that sleeve, he’d done it more than once today. He wrote again, and when Jamie took his seat across from his brother, Geordie held up his slate.

  Muny?

  “Mooney?” Jamie read. Geordie frowned, turned his hand over, and rubbed his fingers together.

  “Money, then,” Jamie guessed. Geordie nodded. “I assume you mean the money Hamish lost. I told you, lad, it’s in the English lass. The money is tied up in a lady’s skirt, so to speak.”

  Geordie’s expression darkened. He shook his head, pushed away from the table, and walked to the window, bracing his arm against the frame and staring out.

  It had been like this since Geordie had been rendered mute by the cut of Cormag Brodie’s sword across his gullet. Mute for now or forever, no one knew. But since the doctor had forbidden him from trying to speak for a full year to allow any healing that might be done, Geordie had taken to brooding.

  Brooding was not something Jamie could easily abide, and it had created a silent rift between him and his brother. He had quite a lot to keep him awake at night as it was, and besides, he missed Geordie’s counsel. But Geordie’s spelling was so wretched that it made it difficult to communicate at all. Jamie was therefore relieved when his cousin Robbie entered the dining room with Duff. Geordie was better endured with company.

  “Jamie, lad!” Robbie said cheerfully. “I’d given up on you.” He clapped Jamie on the shoulder and leaned across him at the sideboard to pick up a plate. “You’ve been set to rights, aye?”

  “I am feeling more hopeful that I have.” Jamie finished filling his plate and sat at the table. “What have I missed, then? Where is our ransom this morning?” he asked, and shoved a forkful of haggis into his mouth. “And where are the dogs? I’ve no’ seen so much as a hair of them.”

  Duff snorted. “I suspect she’ll be in to join us shortly.” He turned his attention to the sideboard.

  “I donna need to see her; I want only to know where she is. She is a thousand pounds walking about Dundavie.”

  “I think you’ll no’ have much choice. She’s rather made herself at home, she has.” Duff smiled thinly and sat heavily at the table with a plate piled precariously high with food. “She took your words to heart, she did, and has made herself familiar with every inch of Dundavie.”

  Jamie could not recall what he’d said to her in the foyer. He didn’t know what he’d expected, really—likely nothing, given that he was on the verge of death when they’d ridden into the bailey. And that he was not in the habit of taking a hostage to be exchanged for ransom. Be that as it may, Jamie hardly cared what she did, as long as she didn’t leave Dundavie.

  And the last thing he wanted to dwell on was an English rose traipsing about his home. “What else, then? Any trouble from Murchison—”

  “What a wonderful sight! You’re awake!”

  That lilting voice heralded the arrival of Miss Daria Babcock to the dining room. The men all seemed to remember themselves at once, finding their feet as she winged into their midst on a cloud of blue muslin. Her hair was wound up in a style Jamie knew was fashionable in London. Her skin was flushed, as if she’d run to the dining room, and she was smiling broadly. The lass looked very different from when Jamie had last seen her, bedraggled and stained with his blood. Today, she was enticing. She appeared sophisticated, a woman who very clearly had been trained to be a lady.

  Jamie realized he was staring at her and instantly averted his gaze—which landed on his dogs, which he hadn’t noticed until then. They were trotting obediently along behind her, and now he understood what Duff had meant—the bloody hounds had betrayed him.

  “How happy I am to see you at last on the mend!” Miss Babcock cheerfully observed as she came to a halt before him, beaming up at him as if she’d somehow had a hand in it. She absently put her hand down on Anlan’s head and scratched him behind the ears. Aedus immediately tried to nose his way in. “I had begun to fret for your well-being, in truth. I begged Mr. Duff to allow me to see you and he would not.” She paused to give Duff a withering little look before turning her smile, full and bright, to Jamie once more. “He had me rather convinced that you were not improving as I hoped.”

  Duff grunted and resumed his seat and his meal.

  Geordie suddenly appeared at Jamie’s side. He picked up his slate and scrawled, She leve us.

  “Ah . . . Miss Babcock, if I
may, I should like to introduce my brother, Geordie Campbell.”

  “Yes,” she said, glancing down at Anlan, who, Jamie was chagrined to see, was gazing adoringly up at her. “We’ve met.”

  Geordie slapped down his slate and took a seat alongside Duff.

  She ignored him. “Are you breaking your fast? It smells wonderful.” She clasped her hands behind her back and rose up on her toes, then down. “Divine,” she added.

  No one spoke.

  “I slept very well indeed, and I am famished,” she added hopefully.

  Jamie exchanged a wary look with Duff. “Would you care to join us, Miss Babcock?”

  “Are you certain I won’t be a bother?” she asked quickly, already moving to the sideboard, with Jamie’s bloody useless dogs moving obediently with her. Three, four days, was that it? The damned hounds had changed their loyalties in only days?

  Miss Babcock helped herself to a sliver of ham and gave a bite to each dog, then poured a thimbleful of ale. She turned from the sideboard and seemed startled to find the four of them staring at her. She smiled, then took an empty seat. Anlan and Aedus slid down on their bellies next to her chair, heads between their paws, waiting patiently.

  Jamie gave both mongrels a dark frown before resuming his seat, while Duff, Geordie, and Robbie watched Miss Babcock cut her ham into tiny bites. They eyed her as if they’d never seen a woman eat before, as if they were surprised to find a little blue jay hopping around them and pecking at the food.

  She took a bite, chewed delicately, then smiled at Jamie. “I am glad to find you improved,” she said as she speared another bite. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps there are ways we might speed this kidnapping along—”

  “ ’Tis no’ a kidnapping,” Jamie reminded her. “You are collateral for a debt.”

  She gave him a pretty but patronizing little smile that he guessed she’d practiced across dining tables with many gentleman suitors. “You say collateral, I say kidnapped and held against my will. But it’s all rather the same thing, is it not?”

  Jamie opened his mouth to argue, but she put up a hand.

  “Wait, please—hear me out before you disagree. I thought that perhaps we might both return to our preferred state of being—you being a laird of this delightfully rustic castle, and me being an Englishwoman . . . preferably somewhere far away, say, England—and I thought, would it not make more sense if instead of delivering a letter to my friend in Edinburgh, you deliver me instead? That way I might explain the situation to my friend, who will see to it that your money is returned to you.” Her smile brightened. “It should save us all quite a lot of time. It’s rather brilliant, do you see?”

  “Mary, Queen of Scots,” Duff muttered.

  “What do you think, my lord?” she asked.

  “Laird,” Duff said gruffly. “We are no’ in England. He is laird.”

  “Laird,” she said with a slight frown for Duff, then cast an expectant look to Jamie.

  “I think,” Jamie said, settling back, “that this is a very good idea for you.”

  She smiled, obviously pleased with herself.

  “But I think it a very bad idea for me.”

  Her lovely smile faded somewhat. “I cannot imagine a single reason why you might think so.”

  He arched a brow at her. “Can you no’ think of at least one or two, then?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Laird. I give you my word—”

  “Ach,” he said, taking his turn to throw up a hand. “I have no use for your word. Your grandmamma has no’ exactly been true to her words, and in the Highlands, the bad word of kin will ruin the promises of an entire family.”

  She made a sound that indicated she did not care for that at all and put down her fork. “So everyone keeps saying. There seem to be quite a large number of rules in the Highlands. But I have given you no cause to doubt my word.”

  “That is all we will say on the subject, Miss Babcock.” He picked up his fork and continued with his meal. He was aware that those big, expressive eyes were fixed on him, and not in an admiring way. He could almost feel them drilling clean through him.

  “But don’t you want your money?” she said, her voice decidedly less cheerful. “Do you not see that mine is a much more expedient way to have your money returned to you?”

  Jamie sighed. “Miss Babcock, please do pen your letter. I’ll have it delivered to Edinburra straightaway, and far quicker than either you or I would manage it.”

  She sank back in her chair, her arms folded. “Really, my lord, this all seems so . . . medieval.”

  “Laird,” Duff said through a mouthful of eggs.

  “I’m sorry you find it so,” Jamie said, and polished off his food, sopping up the juices with his bread.

  “Please don’t misunderstand me. Your home . . . I suppose it is a home of sorts, isn’t it? It is quite lovely, and I cannot complain about the accommodations. I don’t mind in the least taking long, winding walks through dark corridors to the dining room, or finding a library in the place where I am certain a dungeon once stood, given the marks on the stone walls. But the fact remains that there is very little to occupy me, and I must be a strain on your coffers.”

  “You are no strain,” Jamie said, and pushed his plate away before turning his glance to her. “No’ as yet, that is.”

  “Well then, what am I to do while you hold me prisoner?”

  If she thought she would goad him, she was wrong. He shrugged. “You’ve letters to write, have you no’?”

  “With all due respect, that will require only a few minutes of my time.”

  Geordie tapped his elbow and showed him the slate. Shuvl barns.

  Jamie smiled at his brother. It was bloody well tempting. “You seem a resourceful lass. I have every confidence you will think of ways to occupy yourself whilst your family repays its debt to mine.”

  “You are far too confident,” she said sweetly. “It’s not as if I am particularly welcome here. Give me some idea of an occupation, please.”

  How in heaven’s name would he know? “I am no’ a woman. Try sewing,” he said, and looked at Duff. “Someone can give our guest a bit of thread, aye?”

  “Sewing! Do you truly expect me to sit about and embroider while I am held against my will?”

  “Mary, the queen of all Scotsmen, did precisely that when she was held against her will by your English queen, aye? There you are, then, Miss Babcock, something else to occupy your time—you might also hie yourself to our dungeon and read a bit of Scots history.”

  “Laird!” she said. “There must be something I might do. Something I can do to help. In Hadley Green, I am involved in charitable endeavors. Perhaps you might have a charity that could use my services?” she asked hopefully.

  He was finding her enthusiastic plea almost amusing. “We take care of our own.”

  She sighed. “Of course you do. Campbells are entirely self-sufficient in all things, I suppose.”

  “No’ entirely,” he said, smiling now. He looked down the table at Robbie. “Have we found a wife for Dougal Campbell?” he asked.

  “Diah, Jamie—”

  “There is something you might do,” he said to her. “A wee bit of matchmaking.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Her fair cheeks pinkened.

  Jamie very much enjoyed her maidenly blush. “Find him a wife, then, Miss Babcock. That ought to keep you quite occupied, aye?”

  “And why should I, or anyone else, find Dougal Campbell a wife?”

  “He is a blacksmith here. His wife died of the ague last winter.”

  “What I mean,” Daria said impatiently, “is wouldn’t this Mr. Campbell want to find his own wife?”

  “The lad has tried,” Jamie said, “but he’s no’ had the good fortune of finding her.”

  Daria looked perplexed. “But . . . what has that to do with you?”

  “It has everything to do with him,” Duff said impatiently. “As the laird, he is responsible for the clan’s well-being
in all regards. Dougie Campbell has brought this particular problem to the laird to solve.”

  “And now,” Jamie said, “I have solved it.”

  No, Geordie wrote in rather large letters on his slate, underlining them several times before handing it to Jamie.

  “Why no’?” Jamie said. “She has far too much time on her hands, as we’ve all heard quite clearly. Miss Babcock, Duff will introduce you to Dougal Campbell on the morrow.”

  “That’s not necessary, as I have already made Mr. Campbell’s acquaintance,” she sniffed.

  That surprised Jamie. He gave her a dubious look, to which Miss Babcock smiled, pleased with herself.

  “I am not one to mope, sir. I’ve uncovered the lay of the land—of Dundavie, that is—while you have recuperated, and I have made Dougal Campbell’s acquaintance. And he did not seem to me to be in a very big hurry to have a new wife, but if that is your wish, then I will find him one.”

  Jamie had fully expected her to demur. She was bluffing. He stood up. “To Dougie’s happy future, then. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve been taken from my duties for more than a week, thanks to your grandmamma.” He started out of the room. “Anlan, Aedus, trobhad.”

  Anlan was on his feet at once, trotting forward. But Aedus stayed on his belly and began to thump his tail nervously. He looked up at Miss Babcock.

  “Aedus, trobhad,” Jamie said again, a little more forcefully.

  The dog’s ears dropped back as he slowly rose.

  “Stay,” Miss Babcock said airily, without even looking at the dog, and Aedus’s tail began to swish nervously along the floor.

  “He doesna speak English,” Jamie said, and gestured for his dog. But Aedus looked at him as if he were a stranger.

  “Good dog,” Miss Babcock cooed, and the traitorous Aedus flattened out his ears completely, lowered his head, and slid, like the snake he was, onto his belly beside her. Miss Babcock smiled coyly at Jamie. “It would seem he speaks at least a little bit of English, wouldn’t it?”

  Jamie glared at Aedus, who avoided his gaze altogether. He looked at Miss Babcock, who had the most impudent smile he thought he’d ever seen on a woman. Then he whistled for Anlan, who at least had the canine decency to come when his master called.