Never Kiss a Laird

Never Kiss a Laird

By

Tess Byrnes

Copyright
2013 Tess Byrnes

Also by Tess Byrnes

Waking up with a Viscount

Chapter One

The Most Noble Hugh McLeod, Earl of
Kane, Baron McLeod of Thorne, hunched his shoulders against the relentless
rain, and urged his horse along the soggy lane.
 
Riding the last leg of the long journey from London
back to his home in Scotland
had seemed like a fine idea that morning, when the sun had shone on a crisp late-February
morning, and the world was dry. This morning the thought of spending the day in
a closed carriage had seemed intolerable.
 
Now, with the rain soaking through his overcoat, and running down his
hat into the collar of his shirt, he was beginning to wonder if insanity ran in
his family.
 
He looked up as he passed a
signpost, and realized he was within a mile of his Godmother’s estate, where he
planned to rest overnight before continuing on to Castle Kane.
 

“Thank God,” he muttered aloud, and
his horse pricked his ears at his master’s voice.
 
“Not much farther, Rufus,” he called
encouragingly.
 

As if he understood, the stallion’s
steps picked up.
 
Hugh was not unaware of
the irony of urging his steed to a faster pace.
 
In the usual order of things, he dreaded his infrequent visits to his
Godmother and it had been over a year since he had last obliged her.
 
The circumstance of his Godmother’s estate
lying in a straight line between London
and the Castle put him within a few miles of Waverly on his journey.
 
Stopping along the way had seemed like an ideal
chance to at once meet his obligation and get himself off the hook for another
twelve month.
 
He had promised his Mama,
before she died, that he would stay in touch with his Godmother.
 
Hugh interpreted this to mean a yearly
contact, because more than that he could not endure.
 
If the weather had not been so miserable, he
might have re-thought this year’s visit and continued on directly to Castle
Kane.
 
However, the soaking rain made
refuge a necessity, and having given himself a reprieve by leaving London in the middle of
the Season, a visit to his acerbic and unloving God-mama seemed like a fitting
punishment.
 

Hugh invariably spent the Season in
his town house in Mayfair, riding in the park
by day, or meeting friends at one of his many clubs.
 
In the evenings he attended balls, or more
often, visited a gaming saloon or played at cards with his cronies.
 
He attended prize fights, and boxed at Jackson’s saloon,
indulged in curricle races and, in general, participated in all the activities
of a young and well-breeched man of fashion.
 

The usual run of the season had
been thrown off this year by the fact of Hugh’s romantic pursuit of a very
well-bred and correct young woman.
 
Miss
Clarissa Riding had been courted by every eligible bachelor in London.
 
She was enchantingly lovely, and impeccably
well-bred.
 
Hugh had dangled after the
blonde beauty, like most of his cronies, and his pretensions looked like being
rewarded.
 
Miss Riding and her family
smiled upon the Earl’s addresses, and he had every reason to believe that his
suit, if and when he proffered it, would be accepted from amidst the plethora
of competing suitors.
 
When this fact
became apparent to Hugh, he somewhat guiltily realized that he had been
following the fashion, more than following his heart.

The Earl’s acquaintances had
congratulated him on his good fortune.
 
He was the envy and the cause of resentment of every other bachelor in London.
 
And yet, as the need to make a decision about
marriage closed in, Hugh had felt a suffocating need to escape from London, from his good
fortune and the envy of his friends, and from the fair Clarissa.
 

With the Season in full swing, Hugh
used a trifling business need at Castle Kane as an excuse to go home to Scotland.
His estate agent had indeed written to ask his advice about several issues on
the home farm, and so the Earl had made his excuses and escaped.
 

As the weather grew heavier and the
sky darkened further, his destination came in to view.
 
His weary horse plodded up the tree-lined
avenue, but instead of stopping at the entrance of the commodious brick manor,
Hugh urged his steed around the drive and down to the stables.
 
After he had brushed and watered Rufus, he
lifted the cloak bag he had strapped to the saddle, and dashed between the
raindrops back to the front door.
 

The heavily-carved oaken door was
pulled open by Lady Waverly’s very correct butler, and the respectable retainer
recoiled visibly at the sight of the bedraggled Earl.

“My lord, you are soaked to the
skin!” the butler exclaimed, not so much in compassion as in horror.
 

“Yes, the rain will have that
effect, Marsters.
 
Good evening.”
 
Hugh pushed into the blessedly dry entry
hall, and stood dripping on my lady’s fine Aubusson carpet.
 
He allowed the disapproving butler to help
him out of his great coat, and relinquished his hat.
 

“We will have the Blue room
prepared for you, my lord,” Marsters informed him, clucking his tongue at
Hugh’s bedraggled appearance. “Your trunks, my lord?” he inquired hopefully.

“This is the sum of my luggage,
Marsters,” Hugh replied, handing over the cloak bag.
 
“I’m only here the one night, you know.”

The butler blenched further and
shook his head.
 
He thought very poorly
of Hugh’s notion of proper luggage, not to mention his lack of a valet.
 
And he was very aware that his mistress would
expect the Earl to appear for dinner in knee-breeches and a long-tailed coat,
and the likelihood that correct evening dress reposed in the small cloak bag
was slim indeed.
 

“Dinner will be served in an hour,
sir,” he intoned dourly as he handed the offending bag to a footman, and
watched as Hugh trod quickly up the stairs to get ready to meet his Godmother.

Forty five minutes later, Hugh
stood hesitating with his hand on the salon door.
 
He was not a timorous man.
 
He stood well over six feet in height, and
his love of sports and athleticism was obvious in his well muscled frame.
 
His hair was so dark as to almost appear
black, and his handsome good looks had caused many a debutante a sleepless
night or two.
 
His eyes were brown and
very direct, nose tending towards the aquiline.
  
In repose his face had a harsh aspect, but his
ready smile and quick sense of humor softened this affect, and lent a great
deal of charm to his face.
 
He was a
bruising rider, a promising amateur boxer, and in short, was more used to
intimidating than being intimidated.
 
Grasping the door knob in his hand and squaring
his shoulders he reminded himself that he was in fact six-and-twenty, no longer
six years old.
 
He took a deep breath and
pushed the door open and stepped into his Godmother’s censorious presence.
 

The dowager sat before the fireplace,
regal in a puce satin gown with a large and ornate headdress on her coiffed
head.
 
Looking at her, Hugh was
immediately struck by how much older and smaller she looked than he had
remembered.
 
Her papery face was heavily lined,
the hook nose dominating her face, and the hand that held her cane was thin and
claw-like. Her eyes, which had been closed, opened at the sound of the door,
and it seemed to Hugh as if she were momentarily disoriented.
 
His expression softened and he felt a pang of
compassion.
 
Then she spoke.

“You look like a shag-rag, Hugh,”
Lady Waverly proclaimed in her harsh voice.
 
“No one would take you for a gentleman, let alone a nobleman.
 
Come in and close the door behind you.
 
You are causing a terrible draught.”

“Good evening, Godmother,” Hugh
spoke calmly, as the world righted itself again.
 
“I do apologize for dining with you in such
casual attire.
 
It was such a beautiful
morning that I left my coach to continue the journey on horseback, and thus
find myself separated from my luggage.
 
I
had not anticipated such a change in the weather.”

“
Demned
silly thing to do.
 
Why you must needs caper about on horseback I
will never understand.
 
Your father never
would have done such a thing; he knew what his station deserved. And according
to Marsters, you are acting as your own groom and valet as well. Come in, come
in, and let me take a look at you.”
 
She
raised her lorgnette to her eye, and Hugh repressed the compelling impulse to
straighten his cravat.
 

Her unnervingly enlarged eye
scanned him from his boots to his head, from his gleaming Hessians, biscuit
colored breeches that formed to his muscular legs, onwards to a plain
waistcoat, innocent of any fobs.
 
Hugh
set his teeth as her scowl intensified, and the examining eye moved up over the
blue coat of superfine that showed off his broad shoulders, and finally met his
eyes.
 
She observed the dark hair, still
damp and trying to curl against the plain riband that confined it at the nape
of his neck.
 
Her scowl softened as her
eyes rested on his handsome face and the rueful smile he could not keep from
his eyes at her obviously disapproving scrutiny.

Lady Waverly dropped her lorgnette,
and motioned towards the chair opposite her own.
 
“Sit down, for the love of god, Hugh.
 
I can’t imagine why you are standing there
like a
looby
.”

A smile danced in Hugh’s brown
eyes, and he obediently took a seat.
 
The
response on his lips, that she had not yet invited him to sit, was not even
worth uttering.
 

“You are looking very well,
Godmother,” he said, instead.
 
“Are you
planning on joining your daughter and her family in London any time soon?
 
I hope they are all in health.”

“Do not speak to me of my daughter’s
family,” she commanded harshly.

“
Er
, as
you wish.” Hugh cast about in his mind for another topic of conversation, his
first gambit, which had seemed such a safe subject, having gone awry.
 
Before he could think of anything his
godmother spoke again.

“That ninny of a granddaughter of
mine has disgraced herself, and her family.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Hugh
murmured politely.

“Dummy!”
 
Lady Waverly spat.
 
“Sorry to hear it?
 
It’s a disaster!
 
Here is the girl, preparing for her first
Season, grown into a beauty apparently, possessed of a very handsome fortune,
and she throws it all away for nothing.”

Hugh was silent, aware that
anything he said would only turn his Godmother’s ire towards himself.
 
He waited with a patience born of
experience.
 

“I, of course, will be left to pick
up the pieces, as usual,” Lady Waverly continued, with grim satisfaction.
 
“The girl has thoroughly compromised
herself.
 
Spent the night in the company
of a local buck and then refused to marry the cad.
 
He was brought up to scratch, and the girl
refused.
 
My daughter has canceled the
girl’s come-out and writes to ask what she should do with the chit.
 
Wants to send her overseas
with a companion or some such stuff.
 
Hoping to rescue the family’s reputation by whisking
the girl out of sight as quickly as may be.”

Hugh began to feel very sorry
indeed for the girl in question.
 

“Never did I think to see such
behavior,” the old woman continued, as if she had forgotten about Hugh’s
presence.
 
“In my day, a young gel would
never think to go off alone with a man, and if she did, she would accept
whatever fate her parents meted out.
 
But not my hoity-toity granddaughter.
 
Do you know what she told her parents?
 
That she would rather die a spinster than
accept the offer made to her.”
 
She
turned her baleful glare so abruptly upon Hugh that he jumped slightly.
 

“And what about
you!”

“Me?” Hugh asked, astonished, and
taken off guard. “I have nothing to do with the affair.”

“Of course you have not,” Lady
Waverly snapped.
 
“When are you going to
make someone an offer?
 
You are not as
young as you were, Hugh.”

“I cannot deny it,” Hugh replied
evenly.
 
“I assure you, when I do make
someone an offer, you will be the first to know.”

“I don’t suppose I will,” his
godmother returned shrewdly.
 
“You’d
better not shilly-shally around, Hugh.
 
You’re a rich, young man, and more handsome than is good for you.
 
You’d do well to choose a bride quickly,
rather than wait and fall into some match-making mama’s trap.”