And the Bride Wore Plaid (25 page)

A new gown that was simple and elegant—Kat couldn’t help a burble of happiness from flickering through her. “Annie, you’re priceless.”

A half hour later, a lone rider arrived at Kilkairn Castle. Donald, armed with specific instructions from Mistress Annie, rode up to the servants’ entrance and requested to speak with her cousin Jane.

Jane was a while in coming as Lady Strathmore had decided that the castle had to be cleaned from top to bottom for the upcoming ball, a fact that had horrified Jane. Normally, she made it a point not be easily found when there was work to be done. This time, she’d hidden behind the curtain in the library and had promptly fallen asleep, propped against the windowpane. She’d been fortunate only John the footman had found her as she’d drooled a bit and marred the glass. Lady Strathmore was not the fussiest of employers, yet Janie couldn’t help but think perhaps window drool was a bit much. So, sighing as if greatly put upon, Jane had wiped the window with the dust rag she’d let drop to the floor on the onset of her nap, then trudged back to the kitchen.

She halted on seeing such a huge man waiting on her. “Och now, who be ye?”

“Donald. Mistress Annie sent me to ye.”

Jane looked the man up. Then down. She lingered on the appropriate places and raised her brows in admiration. “Annie has always been a good cousin to me.”

The man’s brows lowered.

Janie quickly said, “So ye’re one of the lads from the cottage, eh? Fairly large, aren’t ye?”

“I’m no‘ the largest.”

Well! That was difficult to imagine. The giant who stood before her was every bit of six and a half feet tall, his head barely clearing the ceiling. He was a fine-looking man, too, Jane decided. With large hands as could hold a lass just right whilst tupping.

Suddenly feeling more awake, Jane smoothed her hair and hoped she didn’t have a red spot on her forehead from napping against the window. “Whot’s Annie wantin‘ from me?”

Donald glanced around the busy kitchen. Preparations were already under way for the ball and there was a fervid air to the many maids and cooks who ran hither and yon. ‘Twasn’t a good place for private speech. “Mistress Annie wrote ye a note. Can we speak somewhere where there’s less noise?”

Jane pursed her lips. “There’s a shed by the barn.”

“A shed?” Donald blinked. “There’s no need fer that. Everyone is in here so no one would hear us talkin‘ if we just went outside.”

“But the shed is very private.” She leaned forward and placed her hand on his thick, bulging arm. “No one will even know we’re there.”

Donald shook his head. “Mistress Annie said I was to hurry, so the courtyard ‘twill do.” He turned and went back the way he’d come.

Jane sighed her disappointment as she followed him. She wondered what Annie could possibly want. Annie was always in a tizzy about her position with Miss Kat. Which was a silly thing to be, because everyone knew it was more of an honor to work for the viscount and viscountess in the castle than to work for Miss Kat in her cottage in the woods. Although ... Jane looked once more at the massive man who walked before her, noting his tight rump and muscular thighs. Perhaps there were some benefits to working in the cottage for Miss Kat, after all.

Donald led the way to an area near the outer wall. Except for a few maids gathered on the other side of the garden, they were quite alone. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled note. “Mistress Annie said to give this to ye.”

Jane opened the hastily scribbled note, smoothed it out, and then squinched her eyes at it.

Donald looked at her with suspicion. “Can ye read?”

“O‘ course I can read,” Jane said indignantly. “Not well, of course. But well enough.” She squinted back at the paper, slowly working her way through the rather scrambled writing. “She wants a book?”

Donald nodded.

Jane studied the note a bit more, then nodded once. “What Miss Kat needs is one o‘ Lady Strathmore’s fashion plate books.”

“Can ye get one for us?”

Jane folded the note and carefully stowed it in her pocket, taking the time to admire Donald’s wide shoulders and how he dwarfed even the huge shrubbery around the herb garden. “Possibly.”

“What do ye mean ‘possibly’? Are ye goin‘ t’ help Miss Kat or no‘?”

“I’ll have to steal from me own mistress.”

“Borrow,” Donald said firmly.

“If she don’t know ‘bout it, then ’tis stealin‘.”

He eyed her for a long moment, his eyes traveling over from her head to foot. Eyes of dark blue that left a shiver everywhere they went.

Janie wished she’d worn her good gown today of all days. She had to settle for thrusting her bosom forward and sucking in her gut. She wished she had the time to comb her hair, too.

“I have to hurry back,” he finally said. “Mistress Annie said ‘twas important we no’ waste any time in gettin‘ that book to her.”

“Then ye’ll have to make sure she gets it. But first we’re goin‘ to have to visit the shed.”

He blinked slowly. “The shed?”

“I want a kiss,” she said firmly, giving him a direct look that gave him pause. “And more.”

Lord love the woman, but she was daft, she was. But she was also young, clean, and rather attractive with her brown hair and blue eyes. Besides, he was not a man who took well to returning from an errand empty-handed. Not Donald.

She wet her lips. “The woodshed behind the stables is empty.”

Donald rubbed his neck. The things he had to do for Miss Kat. Still, he was not about to give this hot young miss a ride for nothing. He wasn’t one who liked his women ordering things about as if they thought they was better than he.

He eyed her up and down as boldly as she had him. “We don’t need a shed.”

“We don’t?” She glanced around, finding the small knot of giggling women on the other side of the garden, watching them with knowing glances.

“We don’t need a shed or any other place. Here will do just fine.” He reached down and undid his belt. Several of the maids began to giggle, whispering furiously to one another.

Jane caught his wrist, casting a furiously red-faced glance at her friends. “Whist now! Not here!”

“No? But—”

“The woodshed,” she hissed. She caught his gaze and must have realized he was teasing, for a smile broke over her features. “The woodshed?”

He didn’t move.

She added softly, “Please.”

There it was. He reached down and patted her bottom in a way that pleased her very much. “Very well, ye little strumpet. To the woodshed wid ye. But don’t go getting‘ any ideas. This is fer Miss Kat and no one else.”

Face pink with pleasure, Jane sniffed, then sashayed off, nose in the air, wiggling her hips as she went.

Following behind, Donald noted that not only was she pleasantly brass, but she had a lovely sway to her cart, too. And he was a man who appreciated swaying carts.

Feeling rather pleased with himself, Donald closed the shed door behind him. It was amazin‘ the things he had to do fer the mistress.

Ah
, ma chere.
You are wrong when you say this is not the time for love. Love makes its own time. It always has
.

Madame Bennoit’s assistant, Pierre, to Sabrina, Lady Birlington’s kitchen maid

Life, Devon decided, was a complex proposition. Just when you thought you had everything figured out, something would occur to prove you wrong—again.

Wet and bedraggled, he found the library, where he knew a fire would be waiting. He was right; a merry blaze met him as soon as he opened the door. To his relief, the room was also empty.

He made his way inside, found a chair, and pulled it close to the flames, then dropped into it and stretched his booted feet before him.

His mind was so full of the day that it raced. He was aflame with Katherine Macdonald. Tomorrow was much, much too far away, and the knowledge was torturous.

Devon reached over and retrieved the three-week-old edition of the
Morning Post
. He would read and get his mind off such things as Kat’s luminous green eyes or the curve of her hips as she rode Lady through the fields.

He idly leafed through the paper, seeing nothing to stop his rapid thoughts. Finally, irritated, he threw it down. In a way, it was strange seeing a remnant of his previous life. Since he’d come to Kilkairn, he felt as if he’d been living in a distant, mystical land. Even Kat in her sturdy little cottage in the woods, surrounded by her seven scowling giants, seemed unreal.

But real she was, as evidenced by his growing feelings. And they were growing, he admitted. Though not in his usual manner. Normally, by this point in a relationship, he was well on his way to proclaiming his love. Somehow he knew Kat would not appreciate such an impulsive, and eventually worthless, display. If he told her he loved her, he’d better mean it with every ounce of his heart, soul, and body, for she’d accept nothing less.

Up till now, his life wasn’t a very pretty picture. If he ever wanted a relationship that was more, then
he
would have to be more, do more, give more. That fact was slowly becoming obvious to him.

He moved restlessly. It was strange, but he didn’t miss London nearly as much as he had expected. He remembered his astonishment at discovering that his brother Chase planned to close his London residence except for a paltry two months of the year, so that he could reside in the manor house he’d purchased near his new bride’s childhood home.

Devon couldn’t imagine how his sophisticated, onetime dissolute brother would find anything to do in the country. Yet when he’d mentioned his concerns to his brother, Chase had laughed and then categorized about two hundred chores and efforts he and Harriet already had planned, including a new system to shear sheep and store wool that he’d been certain would revolutionize the entire industry.

It was then that it had dawned on Devon how much Chase had changed. Now, though, he wondered if perhaps Chase hadn’t changed at all, but had only found a place to expend his energies. Energies he’d been wasting before he met Harriet.

Devon grimaced. It was all nonsense. Chase might have needed to change, but God knew that Devon didn’t. Except for his irresolution with women, he liked who he was and what he was, and if he sometimes worried about his inability to feel anything substantial, it was merely because he wasn’t yet ready to settle down. Yes, that was all it was.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” Devon said over his shoulder, glad for the interruption.

The door opened and Tilton entered, dressed and pressed into the perfect rendition of the perfect gentleman’s gentleman. “I beg your pardon, sir. May I have a word with you?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Tilton came to stand beside Devon’s chair, standing a precise two feet from the arm. “Sir, I still have not located the talisman ring.”

“Blast!” Yet another thing to add to his list of things to think about that he’d rather not.

“Indeed, sir. I took the chamber apart but other than discovering a ruby cravat pin that most definitely was not yours, I found nothing.”

Devon scowled. He’d been certain Tipton would find that damned ring, so certain that he hadn’t really bothered to think about it. Now, though ... Devon rubbed a hand over his face, wondering what he should do next.

He remembered seeing the ring on Mother’s hand, the light catching the carvings whenever she moved. It was the one thing that was uniquely hers. He suddenly realized how much the ring meant, not just to him, but to his brothers and sister. “Damn, damn, damn. We have to find it.”

“Yes, sir. I shall continue to make discreet inquiries among the servants, though so far, no one seems to know a thing.”

“The hell with discreet. Offer a reward. I have to find that bloody thing before next week.” When he would leave.

The thought depressed him, a feeling he resolutely repressed. “I will ask Lord Strathmore about it.”

“Yes, sir.” Tipton eyed Devon’s wet riding habit. “You will be changing prior to visiting His Lordship, I presume?”

“No. I want to see him now.”

“But you’re wet.”

“I won’t sit on any of his good chairs. Only the old ones that appear ready to fall apart.”

“How fortunate for the good chairs,” Tipton said, eyeing him severely.

Devon hefted himself from his seat, glad to have something to do other than mope about. “And how unfortunate for my arse; most of the bad chairs have fallen springs. I daresay I will be sorry I did not heed your advice and change my clothing.”

“You always are sorry for ignoring my suggestions, and yet you are never slow in disregarding them.”

Grinning, Devon left the room in search of Malcolm. He found him standing outside the sitting room, loitering in the hallway as if listening to the murmured conversation inside.

Malcolm gestured for him to be quiet.

“What are you doing?” Devon asked.

“They are discussing the ball. I want to know who they are inviting.”

“Oh. May I ask why?”

“Because it’s all a plot. I know it is. I just cannot discover what their intentions are.”

It was interesting how a perfectly sane man could become insane once he married. Keeping his voice low, Devon said, “Malcolm, I have lost something.”

“Oh? What?”

“The talisman ring.”

“The talisman ri—” Malcolm snapped his mouth closed. Silence issued from the room inside for a moment, and then the murmured conversation continued.

Malcolm grabbed Devon’s elbow and dragged him around the corner. “Good God, when did that happen?”

“A day or so now. I told Lady Strathmore about it, and she said she’d ask the servants. Do you think she has?”

“I don’t know, though she’s said nothing to me. I’ll ask about and see what I can discover.” Malcolm’s frown deepened. “Devon, what if someone finds it?”

“I hope they will return it to me. Though I don’t want to be burdened with it, it did belong to my mother, and it is rather precious because of that.”

“No, no. I mean ... if the ring is in someone else’s possession, would
they
end up married?”