The Last Debutante Page 12

  In a moment of insanity, Daria said, “I want to see my grandmother.”

  That earned a smile of surprise from him, and one brow arched above the other. “Will you make demands now?”

  “I am worried about her. I believe there is something terribly wrong with her, and I need to see her.”

  “You will see her—”

  “When?”

  “Ach, lass, donna push. You will see her, I give you my word.” He pushed the door slightly open; she felt a slight rush of air on her back.

  “And I want to dine with you,” she added recklessly.

  His smile deepened. “Now you are being bloody unreasonable. You are the enemy of this Campbell clan.”

  “But I am not a prisoner. You assured me I am not.” Daria tried not to think about how badly she desired to touch the stubble on his chin. “Yet I am treated as one, forced to dine alone.”

  “You’ll no’ be welcome at our table.”

  “I’ve endured many difficult tables, I assure you.”

  “Rather confident, you are. Some might even say brazen.”

  “I’m not the least bit brazen. But I will own to being rather stubborn.”

  He suddenly laughed, the sound of it startlingly warm. His gaze swept down her body as he leaned in. “And what shall I ask in return for granting favors to the clan’s biggest enemy?” he mused. His arm brushed against her waist. He pushed the door open wider and leaned back. “I shall consider your request. Now, go and find Duffson, and for God’s sake, be a good lass.” He put his hand on her elbow and wheeled her about, giving her a gentle push out the door.

  When Daria turned back, he was pulling the door shut. “There is your keeper, Miss Babcock. Good day.”

  She whirled around, almost colliding with a red-faced Duffson.

  Twelve

  IT WAS THE pianoforte that swayed Jamie to invite Daria to dine.

  Of course he’d thought of that moment in the hothouse. He’d thought of it as he’d lain in bed; thought of her lips, lush and moist, her bewitchingly sunny smile and glittering eyes.

  But it was the pianoforte that decided him.

  When morning came round, his mind was filled with the usual business and headaches of managing the holdings of Dundavie. His headaches were made worse by the fact that Hamish had been lost again and found several hours after he’d gone missing, wandering about the woods and talking about his friend, an imaginary English earl.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, a letter had come from Malcolm Brodie, Isabella’s father. He wrote that in spite of everything that had occurred between their families, wiser heads had prevailed, and they believed now that Isabella had cried off too quickly. Malcolm wrote that it was Isabella’s wish that he write to propose a reconciliation.

  “Then why did she no’ write it?” Jamie asked, tossing it onto his desk.

  “We should use the opportunity to negotiate a better dowry, aye?” Duff suggested.

  Jamie rubbed his forehead. Duff was right—they had the upper hand now; they could seek better terms. “I’ll think on it.”

  Duff cocked a brow. “What is it, lad? Pride?”

  Jamie slanted him a look, but he did not answer. He didn’t really know what made him reluctant.

  It was as he was debating what to do about Isabella that he’d heard the music. He’d not heard the pianoforte played since his sister, Laurna, had died giving birth to her first child only two years past. Laurna had been the musician in the family. Trained in Paris, she had played beautifully, and the notes that came from her pianoforte would echo up and down the ancient flues of Dundavie like a melody from the beyond.

  Laurna’s passing was hard enough on the clan, and on Jamie in particular, as she and Geordie had been his closest confidants. But the injury to his soul was made worse when she took the music with her. Mr. Bristol, who lived down glen, could be pressed to play the fiddle on occasion, but no one knew how to play the pianoforte, and the clan had resorted to singing in a horrible mismatch of keys and tempos.

  There was such a dearth of entertainment, of art, in fact, that Robbie and Jamie had debated hiring a clan musician until one of their own could be properly trained.

  They all mourned the music.

  So when Jamie heard music creeping in through the vents as he worked one morning, for a few mad moments he thought he was hearing Laurna’s ghost. But then the music stopped and started once more, and he knew it was real.

  And he knew it was her, the English rose.

  He’d walked down the hallway toward the music room, standing just outside to hear her play. Though she was not as talented as Laurna had been, she played well nonetheless, and frankly, it sounded as sweet as anything he’d ever heard.

  That was it, then—the thing about her that might appease his family.

  Jamie told them that night that he intended to invite her to dine with them.

  “With us!” Aileen, Robbie’s wife, said, her brown eyes wide with shock.

  “With us,” Jamie confirmed.

  Geordie had picked up his slate and scrawled across it, Donna keep with inimie, thrusting it at Jamie.

  “She is not our enemy. She is collateral for a debt,” Jamie calmly reminded him.

  That viewpoint was not held by anyone but him and did not garner any support. Rather, it only served to make everyone more cross. Save Hamish, who seemed quite happy with his meal. “Quite like goose,” he said, even though they were dining on salmon.

  But in true Campbell fashion, the rest of them flailed their arms and spoke over each other as they voiced their opinions that Miss Babcock was not suitable to sit at their table, that her grandmother had treated Hamish so ill that she ought to be drawn and quartered in the bailey—

  “What do you mean?” Hamish demanded. “No one’s treated me ill. I’m a Campbell, and besides, I’ve no’ left Dundavie in an age!” Forgetting, of course, that he’d been found only a day or two ago wandering about lost in the woods.

  The debate continued as port was served: was she or was she not a friend of the Brodie clan, that sorry lot of dung-eating, swill-drinking, grave-robbing cretins who lived on the other side of the hills?

  “You all seem to have forgotten that I was only recently engaged to be wed to a Brodie,” Jamie reminded them. “As I recall, you all thought Isabella quite bonny, aye?”

  “We’ve no’ forgotten it, Jamie,” Aileen huffed. “But we’ve forgiven it.”

  “I would hope so, as our situation is such that she and I might be engaged to be wed again,” he’d said crossly.

  Geordie gestured to the pinkish scar across his throat and scribbled, Tuk me hed.

  “Your head is still firmly attached to your shoulders, lad. And the loss of your voice lies with you alone.”

  Geordie had taken issue with that, slamming his slate onto the table and scribbling so tragically illegibly that even the butler was moved to try to decipher it as he dripped gravy onto the floor at his feet. Alas, he could not, and Geordie did not seem inclined to scrawl again.

  “Well?” Jamie demanded of them. “Shall we invite the Ransom to dine?”

  No one spoke for a long moment. No one made eye contact. When Robbie cleared his throat as if preparing to speak, all eyes turned to him. “Perhaps . . .” he said carefully, glancing about him, “she’s no’ as bad as we believe.”

  That earned him a murderous look from his wife and a look of surprise from his laird.

  “Well, she’s made Dougal Campbell happy, aye?” Robbie continued defensively. “And she’s reached the lad Peader, though the good Lord knows how she’s done it. He’s laughing like he’s never laughed before, a different boy altogether.”

  “Nevertheless—” Aileen began.

  “She’s even taught the wee ones to sing a right cheery song, and if that won’t warm your bloody cockles I donna know what will!”

  That was followed by a lively debate over whether the children should be singing in English at all.

  But
then Jamie said, “There is one more thing I should like to add to this spirited debate. She plays the pianoforte.”

  Now all eyes were riveted on him. Eyes wide with surprise and—dare he think it?—hope.

  “Laurna! Where is she, then? I’ve missed the lass,” Hamish said as he examined his sherbet with a critical eye.

  “The pianoforte,” Robbie said skeptically.

  “Heard it myself,” Jamie avowed. “She doesna play as well as Laurna, but she plays well enough for us.”

  Jig, Geordie wrote, his mood brightened by the prospect. He’d always enjoyed a good Highland dance.

  “The tune I heard her playing seemed sprightly enough. The only way to know if she can play a jig is to invite her to do so, aye? Well then, what say you? Shall we have a wee bit of music return to Dundavie?”

  The answer was a grudging aye.

  Jamie summoned Daria the next morning. She swept into his study in a gown of pale green muslin just behind Young John, marching forward like a woman determined to have a word. Aedus and Anlan trotted behind, Anlan’s nose to the floor as if they were out on a brisk walk. The dogs almost collided with her when she suddenly drew up short to have a look around at the paneled walls, where the portraits of past lairds hung. She seemed a wee bit caught off guard by the history that his study was steeped in, but then quickly remembered herself and said, “I beg your pardon,” dipping a curtsy that he suspected was more out of habit than anything else. “Are these your ancestors?” she asked, peering up at one notorious Campbell, whose tamo’-shanter sat jauntily on his florid head, his belt sliding beneath a wide belly.

  “Aye, they are all Campbells of Dundavie.”

  “I rather like the look of this one,” she said. “There’s a bit of a twinkle in his eye. He might lead one to believe that not every Campbell laird is dreadful.” She slanted a look at him from the corner of her eye.

  “I’m no’ dreadful, Miss Babcock, far from it. If you need convincing, I could demonstrate just how dreadful I could be.”

  She clasped her hands at her back. “No, thank you. I will take your word on that score,” she said pertly. “You sent for me? Should I assume the ransom has come? Or there has been word of my grandmother? Or perhaps you were merely looking for your dogs,” she said, and arched a brow.

  Bloody useless dogs. “I sent for you because I have considered your request to dine at the Campbell table—”

  “Thank heaven!” she said to the rafters, loud enough that both dogs began to wag their tails in anticipation of something great happening. “I will perish if I am forced to dine alone one more night—”

  “Pardon, lass, but I’ve no’ as yet extended an invitation.”

  She blinked. And smiled sheepishly. “No, you have not. But I doubt you called me here to tell me you won’t extend an invitation.” She cocked her head curiously to one side. “You didn’t, did you?”

  He smiled, tossed his quill down, and stood, moving around the desk. His limp was growing less noticeable every day, thank heaven, and the wound in his side was hardly noticeable to him now. “I intend to invite you to dine at my table, provided we can come to terms.”

  “Terms,” she repeated skeptically. “How odd. I cannot recall another time I was invited to dine under terms. Another Scottish custom, I suppose. Very well, what would you like? A fatted calf?” she asked, her hands finding her hips. “Or perhaps you mean to humiliate me in some way. Must I declare some oath of allegiance to my liege?”

  “That sounds rather appealing,” he said, casually leaning back against his desk.

  She gave him a look of exasperation. “What is it about the male sex that requires such adoration? One grows weary from it.”

  “You sound as if you’ve done naugh’ but adore men, Miss Babcock. If you are practiced, I will no’ object.”

  She snorted. “One can scarcely be a member of my sex and not be practiced, Laird Campbell.” She said his name as if he were a wee bit shy of a full brain. “This one must be admired for his hunting,” she said, flicking one wrist, “and that one for his prowess at the gaming hells,” she said, flicking the other. Aedus and Anlan seemed to think she was tossing scraps and began to dance around, sitting down on their rumps, their heads pointed up at her when she stopped moving, waiting.

  “Those are cynical words for an English debutante.”

  “Practical words,” she said confidently.

  “I wonder why an English debutante as practical and pleasing to the eye as you is no’ married by now,” he said.

  Her blush deepened and for once, the woman looked entirely at a loss. “That is quite inappropriate—”

  “You broached the subject—”

  “I didn’t! You did!”

  “Why have you no’ married, Miss Babcock? Do you hope for a title? A London townhome? It must be something of the like, for on my word, you are far too bonny to have been overlooked. And you kiss entirely too well.”

  She gasped. He smiled. She gasped again and whirled around, her hands pressed to her cheeks. “That . . . that’s appalling!”

  He laughed. “Did you think I wouldna remember, then? Aye, I was a wee bit out of my head, but a man does no’ forget a kiss like that.”

  “Oh dear God,” she murmured, looking stricken.

  It intrigued him. After all she’d been through, the kiss was the thing to unsettle her? “You didna answer my question,” he said curiously. “Why have you no’ married?”

  “Why haven’t you?” she demanded, quickly regaining her composure. “You are the laird here. Everyone waits for your heir—”

  “Everyone?” he repeated, smiling.

  “All of them,” she said, sweeping her arm grandly toward them “all.”

  He must have looked surprised because she cried, “Aha! You would very much like to know who. You undoubtedly think a lass or two who would like the honor of being your wife.”

  “Are there?” he asked, only mildly curious. He knew very well the speculation about heirs. There had been great hopes placed on his marriage to Isabella, and when that had fallen through, more mothers had hoped for a match with their daughters. He was only surprised that Daria knew it.

  “Are there what?”

  “Are there lassies who want to be my wife? Diah, I will hope they are bonny lassies with wide hips to bear me a passel of children.”

  She blinked. Her cheeks bloomed. And then she smiled. “Would you like me to find you a wife, Laird?” she asked airily. “It’s really rather easy. The only virtue a woman here seems to seek is that her future husband be a Campbell.”

  He laughed. “I donna need your help, Miss Babcock.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked, folding her arms across her middle, drumming her fingers on one arm. “That’s just as well, for I am not inclined to help you, seeing as how you hold me captive here. Even if it would give me a much-needed occupation.”

  “My marriage,” he said, “will be arranged soon enough, donna doubt it. But thank you for your most generous offer to arrange a match for a man whose only redeeming quality appears to be his name.”

  She put her hand on her heart and inclined her head in acceptance of his thanks. “Well then, you may as well give me your terms for dining with civilization, and I will think on them.”

  He’d forgotten the start of this conversation. “You’ll think on them?” He pushed away from the desk and moved so that he was standing directly before her, so close that he could smell the rose scent of her perfume. “You are a clever one, leannan, but you have the unfortunate tendency to make demands of me. Donna make the mistake of believing you are in an English salon, aye? I owe you a debt for saving my bloody hide, and for that, I am granting you leeway I would no’ otherwise grant. The terms, which you will accept if you donna want to be restricted to your suite of rooms for the remainder of your stay at Dundavie, is that you will play the pianoforte for my family.”

  She stared up at him beneath the V of her brows. “You want me to play the pian
oforte?”

  “Aye.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “You do play, aye?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then we will allow you to dine at our table if you will agree to play the pianoforte.”

  “That’s all?” she asked, her frown of confusion deepening.

  “That’s all.”

  “Only that,” she said skeptically.

  The lass hadn’t heard a word he’d said about not arguing. He sighed and resorted to cajoling her. “Miss Babcock,” he said as he casually pushed a loose strand of her hair from her collar, his finger following the line of her shoulder down her arm, “we’ve no’ heard it played since my sister died two winters past. We haven’t anyone who has learned the art and we miss it.”

  Her gaze followed his hand as it slid down her arm to her wrist, his fingers tangling with hers. She gave a slight shiver and Jamie knew that he could persuade her to allow him to explore more of her. “My condolences,” she murmured.

  He ignored that—he still found it difficult to speak of Laurna’s death. And at the moment, he was far more interested in the small bones he could feel as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, his thumb stroking the soft underside.

  “How did she die, if I may ask?”

  “In childbirth,” he said simply. “The child as well.” His fingers curled around hers, and with his thumb, he traced a line along her palm. So smooth, so soft. So feminine. With his health returned to him, Jamie was remembering with some urgency how much he missed the feel of a woman beside him. He wouldn’t mind feeling this woman’s body against his in the least, her grandmother notwithstanding.

  “My family once employed a maid named Louise. She was my companion as far back as I can recall,” she said, her gaze still on his hand. “She married Tom Higgins, and when she carried her first child, she was so full of light, so happy and eager to have the baby. She’d picked out a name, and my father made her a cradle. But she didn’t survive the birth.” She slowly lifted her gaze to his, looked him directly in the eye. “I still miss her, too. I think it the cruelest irony that the source of so much happiness and life can also be the source of so much pain and death.”