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“McSweeney, you old dog!” MacLachlann cried as they started up the steps. “I thought you must be dead by now.”
“As you can see, my lord, I am not,” the butler replied, sounding exactly like an undertaker in a house of bereavement.
“Nor hired by another family?” MacLachlann asked.
“I was, until your solicitor inquired about the possibility of my return to Dubhagen House, my lord.”
“He offered you a pretty penny, too, I don’t doubt. That’s a solicitor for you, always ready to spend a client’s money.”
Esme’s grip tightened at the insult, but MacLachlann ignored her as they continued into the house.
MacLachlann glanced over his shoulder as the butler ordered the coachman to drive around to the mews, then whispered with obvious relief and delight, “McSweeney didn’t bat an eye. If we can fool him, we can fool anybody.”
She was relieved, too, but she couldn’t share his confidence. For one thing, he’d been raised to his role. She had not.
Nor had she grown up in such opulent surroundings. A round mahogany table with an enormous oriental vase full of roses stood in the center of the marble-tiled foyer, their scent lost amid the stronger odors of beeswax and lemons. Pier glasses hung on sea-green walls decorated with ornate white plaster work.
Two middle-aged maids holding brooms and dustpans were in the corridor leading to the back of the house, a hall boy with an empty coal scuttle lurked by a door that probably led below stairs, another footman in scarlet livery waited by the door to what was likely the drawing room and three more maids peered down from the landing above, reached by a wide hanging stair.
“See that our baggage is unpacked at once,” MacLachlann ordered with a casual flick of his hand. “I’ll show her ladyship to her bedroom myself. I trust it’s ready?”
“Absolutely, my lord,” the butler replied. “Your solicitor has hired a most excellent housekeeper, so all is quite prepared despite the lack of time.”
MacLachlann turned on the butler with a speed that was shocking. “Are you presuming to criticize me, McSweeney?” he demanded.
The poor man took a startled step back. “No, my lord. Of course not, my lord.”
“Good.” MacLachlann addressed Esme as if that confrontation had never happened. “Come along, my dear.”
He gave her that … that Look. She stiffened, waiting for a kiss. He pulled her close—and squeezed her bottom.
It took every ounce of self-control Esme possessed not to slap him, especially when she saw the sly look of amusement on his handsome face, and his bright eyes gleaming in a way that sent the blood rushing through her veins.
Then, without a word or even a look of warning, he scooped her up in his arms and started toward the stairs.
Appalled and afraid he was going to drop her, Esme threw her arms around his neck. She was going to demand he put her down at once, until she saw the butler’s shocked expression.
She had a part to play and play it she must, so instead she whispered loud enough for the butler and other servants to hear, “Put me down, dearest ducky, or what will the servants think?”
He didn’t answer as he continued up the stairs.
Not sure what to do, she started to babble like a ninny. “Oh, you’re such a romantic fellow! I’m glad you’re so strong. And you didn’t tell me your house was so magnificent, Ducky, or I would have asked you to bring me here sooner. All that time courting me and you never said. And your servants—so very proper. I do hope they like me!”
Still he was silent as they passed the maids, who dutifully bowed their heads.
Perhaps Augustus was not a loquacious man.
MacLachlann carried her along a corridor full of portraits and paintings of landscapes, the walls behind painted sky blue, until they reached a room nearly at the end of the hall. Finally he spoke as they crossed the threshold. “This is my lady’s chamber.”
Distracted as she was being carried like an invalid, she couldn’t help noticing that it was a beautiful room. The walls were papered with a delicate design of pale green and blue, the draperies green velvet and the cherry furniture polished to a gleaming gloss.
Nevertheless, her surroundings were less important than the fact that he was still holding her in his arms. “You may put me down now.”
He did, slowly setting her on her feet. Very slowly. Her body close to his. Very close.
Suddenly his expression darkened and her heart seemed to stop beating as she wondered what she’d done.
“Who the devil are you?” he demanded, and she realized he wasn’t addressing her, but someone behind her.
She turned swiftly to see a woman in a plain gray woollen gown and white mop cap with a pillow in her hand standing on the other side of the bed curtained with pale blue silk.
She must be a maid, Esme thought, and a very pretty one, too, although not so young as Esme first supposed. She immediately hoped she didn’t have to worry about her alleged husband seducing the servants.
“I am Mrs. Llewellan-Jones, the housekeeper, my lord. I wasn’t informed you had arrived,” the woman replied with a Welsh accent as she dipped a curtsey and met MacLachlann’s genial smile with a frown.
Esme was suddenly quite sure that even if MacLachlann tried to seduce the housekeeper, Mrs. Llewellan-Jones was quite ready and able to resist him.
As she, apparently—and to her chagrin—was not.
“Ah. The solicitor hired you as well?” MacLachlann asked.
“Yes, my lord. I was recently working for Lord Raggles.”
“How is old Rags?” MacLachlann asked with one of his more charming smiles, while Esme sidled toward a huge armoire near the door.
“His lordship was quite well the last time I saw him, my lord,” Mrs. Llewellan-Jones answered evenly.
“Glad to hear it. Now if you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Jones,” he said, “my wife and I would like to rest before dinner.”
Esme darted him a sharp glance, then flushed when she saw The Look on his face.
“It’s Llewellan-Jones, my lord, and what would you like done with your baggage?”
“It can all be taken to the dressing room and unpacked—but no one should enter this room until we ring for a maid.”
Until …? What was he thinking?
“As you wish, my lord. My lady,” the housekeeper replied, her expression serene as she left the room and closed the door behind her.
Chapter Five
On guard and ready for anything, Esme waited with bated breath.
Fortunately MacLachlann didn’t come any closer. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked on his heels as he surveyed the room. “I see Augustus hasn’t paid for any redecorating.”
Determined to act as if she were perfectly calm, Esme began to remove her gloves. “Was it really necessary to be quite so primitive? I’m not one of the Sabine women to be carried over the threshold.”
“It seemed appropriate,” MacLachlann absently replied as he strolled toward the cheval glass that was cracked in one corner. “Gad, this place is in worse condition than I imagined. Augustus should have sold it if he was going to let it fall into ruin.”
“Perhaps he expects to return and repair it someday.”
“Perhaps, but I doubt it,” MacLachlann said as he continued toward the barren dressing table, running a finger along the top as if checking for nonexistent dust. Despite the slight state of disrepair, the room had obviously been recently cleaned.
“Your solicitor seems to have hired a considerable staff.”
“Augustus always had a considerable staff.”
“For which, I assume, my brother is paying?” Esme asked as she began to pull the pins from her hair and set them one by one on the dressing table, making a tidy little pile.
“I certainly couldn’t afford it,” MacLachlann shamelessly admitted. “Jamie was well aware there were going to be considerable costs, no matter how much I try to economize.”
“And are you?” she asked.
“As much as possible. Everything will be accounted for.”
As she pursed her lips with disdain, for the money would still be gone, he strolled to the window and pulled back the draperies, peering into what must be the back garden.
“I don’t think I’d be quite so willing to pay so much to help a woman who jilted me,” he said under his breath, as if thinking aloud.
She wouldn’t be so willing to help a man who’d broken her heart, either, Esme silently agreed, but she wasn’t going to make any more confessions to MacLachlann. “My brother is a very kind and generous man.”
“Obviously,” MacLachlann replied, “or he would have left me on Tower Bridge.”
He turned back into the room, and she was sorry to see that the usual sardonic, mocking expression had returned to his features. “Makes me damn glad I’ve never been in love.”
He hadn’t?
“What about you, Miss McCallan? Has any young gentleman ever stirred your heart?”
As if she would ever tell him if one had! “No.”
“Thought not,” he said with another infuriating grin.
Then, without a word of warning or explanation, he suddenly launched himself at the bed and rolled around on it as if he were possessed.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Making it look as if we’ve been engaged in intimate marital relations.”
“Whatever for?”
“I warned you that the men in my family are passionate.”
Passionate was not what she would call it. “How unfortunate for the women in your family, to be always put upon.”
“Put upon? There speaks a virgin.”
Esme wouldn’t let him make her feel ashamed or ignorant. “Of course I am, and so I shall stay until I’m married.”
He rolled off the bed and onto his feet in one fluid motion. “Until that day, should it ever come to pass—or, I should say, the day after that blessed event—I wouldn’t presume to comment on how other women feel about their husbands’ passionate attentions.”
As she flushed and tried to think of an appropriate response, he started toward a door in the wall to Esme’s right. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my little plum cake, I’m going to change.”
“Isn’t that my dressing room?”
“We have adjoining rooms. As I said, the men in my family are passionate,” he replied, giving her another mocking smile before he left the room.
That evening, delicate bone china sparkled upon the long table covered by fine linen, silver, crystal and lit by candles in silver holders in the earl’s enormous dining room papered in burgundy and with mahogany wainscoting. Footmen stood ready to wait upon the lord and lady, with the butler to oversee them.
Esme, however, was blind to the glories of the expensive setting and scarcely tasted the excellent meal. She was discovering it wasn’t nearly as easy to pretend to be ignorant and silly as she’d supposed. Not only did she have to guard her tongue constantly, but wearing costly clothes like this beautiful, low-cut gown of emerald green silk was also a nerve-wracking torment. She worried she was going to spill wine or soup, a piece of sauced fish or roast beef, on it and ruin it.
It didn’t help that MacLachlann was revelling in the role as lord of the manor, while she was so constrained by hers as his ignorant, vapid wife.
Or that he looked even more handsome in evening dress. The cut of his black evening jacket accentuated his broad shoulders, while his tight-fitting knee breeches and stockings emphasized his leanly muscular legs.
“Yes, the finest gelding I think I’ve ever seen,” he said, referring to the saddle horse he’d bought in London with Jamie’s money and had sent to Edinburgh, as if there weren’t any good horses in Scotland.
She mentally shuddered as she considered how much such an animal and its transportation must have cost.
“Should bring a tidy profit if I ever decide to sell it,” he noted.
Was he telling her that would be the horse’s fate when their task was complete? “You’d sell it?”
“Of course. If I could get the right price, I’d sell it tomorrow.”
So, he didn’t intend to keep it—thank goodness.
“I should be able to get a damn good price for it here. There’s no finer beast in Edinburgh—probably all of Scotland. I trust your mare will be just as fine.”
Esme nearly dropped her sterling silver fork. “You bought two horses?”
Then she remembered she was supposed to be dim, so she added a giggle and widened her eyes. “You don’t mean you bought a horse for me? I don’t ride.”
That was quite true. When she’d been growing up in the Highlands, they hadn’t been able to afford a horse. Jamie had learned to ride later; she never had.
MacLachlann laughed, and this time she did not find the sound of it nearly so appealing. “Well, now that we’re home, you’ll have to learn.”
If ever there was a time to be vapid … She clasped her hands together like a penitent supplicant. “But, Ducky, horses are so big and prancy, I’m sure I’ll fall. You wouldn’t want your dearest love to hurt herself, would you? And you wouldn’t make me do something I really don’t want to do, would you?”
He looked mildly annoyed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a horse.”
Undeterred, Esme put her napkin to her eye and sniffled as if she were weeping. “Is Ducky going to be cruel to his dearest, sweetest love?”
MacLachlann scowled as he reached for his cut-crystal goblet of excellent red wine. “If you really don’t want to ride, very well, don’t.”
“And you’ll sell the mare?”
His frown deepened for a moment, then it was as if he’d suddenly seen an angelic vision. “I should be able to make an even better profit on it,” he declared with obvious satisfaction, “so yes, I’ll sell the mare.”
