Amanda Scott (12 page)

“Aye, but happen we should tell Himself straightaway, miss.”

“No!” Pinkie quickly controlled her dismay, adding more evenly, “There is no cause to tell anyone else until we are quite sure it was Roddy I saw; but if you do find him, bring him back even if you have to carry him.”

“Aye, miss, he willna get the better of me. I ken that laddie well, I do.”

“Thank you,” Pinkie said.

Hurrying upstairs, she learned, just as she had feared, that Roddy was not in the nursery with the little girls. Nor was the countess at home to advise her, for Mary and Lady Agnes had gone out earlier to pay calls. Pinkie had elected instead to go to nearby Shepherd’s Market with her maid to buy ribbons and lace from a milliner’s shop there, to replace the trim on a gown she had worn the previous year in Edinburgh. Maggie Rothwell’s mantua maker, praising the gown, had assured her that with some new trimmings it would be absolutely à la mode.

In the nursery, Pinkie asked Lucy, the nursery maid, how long it had been since she had last seen Roddy.

“Not long, miss. The wee laddie told Nurse not a quarter-hour since that he were going out to play in the garden.”

Hurrying back downstairs, Pinkie met Doreen on the landing. Anxiously, she said, “Did you find him?”

“Nay, miss, I saw nary a sign o’ the scamp, though I might ha’ seen him, had our Dugald no called me back just when I was crossing Tyburn Lane to ha’ a look in yon park.”

“Well, I hope Dugald finds him,” Pinkie said with a sigh, “because if we have to set up a hue and cry, poor Roddy will land in the suds again.”

“Aye, miss, that tutor of his canna get here too soon, I’m thinking.”

Pinkie could only agree. The little boy had fallen into mischief more times than she could count since they had arrived, for Duncan had underestimated the time required to find and hire a suitable tutor. In the end, Rothwell had come to his aid again, recommending a friend’s son, a young gentleman who had fallen ill early in the Easter half at Cambridge and intended to rusticate until the summer term began. Mr. Terence Coombs was to present himself that afternoon.

Dismissing her maid, Pinkie continued downstairs to the hall, where she was relieved to see Dugald coming into the house with Roddy at his side. “There you are, you naughty rascal,” she exclaimed. “What are we to do with you? Where did you find him, Dugald?”

“Yes, where, Dugald?”

All three of them jumped at the sound of Duncan’s deep voice.

Dugald flushed, but Roddy squared his shoulders and looked up at his father, who had apparently just emerged from the bookroom at the east end of the hall. “Dinna scold Dugald, Papa, for it were nane of his doing. I found a wee gate at the corner o’ the garden, leading to the road. I wanted to see if I could get into that park across the way, and I could, so I went in to ha’ a look. Are ye vexed wi’ me, then?”

“I am,” Duncan said sternly. “Come to the bookroom and we will discuss it right now. Had no one given you orders to remain inside this morning?”

Roddy shook his head, surprising Pinkie, until he said, “Mam said she kent I would enjoy playing wi’ the bairns, but I didna enjoy it at all, for they was squallin’ something fierce, and putting Anna in a fierce mood, so I went out to the garden.”

Although Duncan was still frowning when he and his small son retired to the bookroom, Pinkie thought that perhaps Roddy would talk his way out of punishment this time. Nevertheless, Duncan’s patience—never great—was wearing thin. She hoped Mr. Terence Coombs would prove to be a conscientious tutor.

According to Rothwell’s recommendation, the young man would be exactly right for Roddy, because he was an excellent scholar with a quiet way of speaking that would indicate an even disposition. The adults had high hopes for Coombs, but those hopes dimmed the following morning when the family gathered for breakfast, and Roddy declared his new tutor to be a “blethering, gigot-headed bubblyjock.”

“You will listen to him nonetheless, sir, and you will obey him,” Duncan said grimly in reply to this blunt opinion.

“I like Coombs,” Chuff said when Roddy looked rebellious. “He seems a knowing lad to me. He’s a second-year man at Cambridge, after all, Roddy.”

“Aye,” Roddy said. He looked as if he would like to say more, but after a speculative glance at his father, he subsided, and Mary quickly changed the subject.

Pinkie paid little heed to Roddy or his tutor for the rest of the week, because her own affairs kept her busy. Due to the kind offices of Maggie Rothwell and her many friends, the new residents of Faircourt House received a constant flow of invitations. Thus, each morning after breakfast in the cheerful morning room, the three ladies indulged in the pleasant task of deciding which invitations to accept and which would require a note of polite regret.

Soirees, musical evenings, routs, ridottos, drums, concerts of ancient music, and plays filled their evenings. Invitations also came for breakfasts—which, rather oddly, took place in the afternoon—and for a flattering number of other interesting entertainments. At several of these events, Pinkie saw the tall stranger who had visited Duncan. Twice, when she saw him in the company of a stunningly beautiful girl who looked no older than sixteen or so, she felt a twinge of pique. That the girl seemed nearly as interested in flirting with Chuff did not mitigate that feeling.

Nearly a week after first meeting the tall stranger, Pinkie attended a large, formal dinner party with Mary, Chuff, and Lady Agnes—the sort where one talked only to one’s dinner partner and the gentleman on one’s left. When the hostess announced after dinner that there were enough couples for dancing in her drawing room if someone would play for them, Pinkie volunteered.

“How kind you are, Miss MacCrichton,” her hostess said gratefully. “I promise that I shall find someone else to take your place before long, so that you, too, may enjoy the dancing.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Pinkie said, “but do not fret if no one else wants to play. I don’t mind doing so in the least.”

“You are generous to say so, my dear, but I know better. No more than half an hour, and then you must join the dancers if I have to take your place myself.”

Pinkie smiled, certain that the woman, though well meaning, would soon forget in the bustle of looking after those guests who did not choose to dance.

Her hostess drifted away while Pinkie selected music for a country dance and began to play, and Pinkie soon saw her talking with Chuff, Terence Coombs, and the strikingly beautiful young girl she had seen before. Really, she thought, no one deserved to be so pretty. Bad enough were the creature’s dark curly hair, huge dark blue eyes, and skin that looked as smooth and silky as cream. Worse was the way her striped lustring gown hugged her exquisite figure, swelling gently upward from her tiny waist to a soft, plump bosom, and swaying seductively below, beneath a hoop almost too wide for dancing. Had she not possessed grace enough for two, she could never have managed it so deftly.

Looking at her music, then back at the girl, Pinkie reached blindly to turn her page and caught the edge instead. The music book tilted and would have fallen over had not a large, firm hand reached out to steady it.

Glancing up in surprise, she saw that her rescuer was the fascinating man who had visited Duncan. As her gaze met his, her body tensed and she missed a note. She could feel her heart beating. Looking quickly back at the music, striving for calm, she managed to murmur her thanks.

“Aye, you’re welcome,” he said.

Glancing back at him, she saw that his gaze was fixed on the page. He wore a dark-blue cut-back frock coat with fashionably narrow skirts, a velvet collar, and gold-edged buttonholes. His waistcoat was beige, almost skin-colored, with a small floral pattern in pink and lavender. It was also quite short, as she knew the latest mode demanded, and in her newfound knowledge of fashion, she also recognized that he had shunned Frenchification in favor of a wholly English look.

Though she returned her attention to the music, his image remained in her mind’s eye and seemed somehow familiar. His dark blue eyes, set deep beneath their shaggy brows, had knitted in concentration as he followed the music with his hand poised to turn the next page. He wore his hair powdered and tied at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon, but his expressive dark brows indicated its true color.

She was aware of him as she had never been aware of a man before. Without looking at him, she felt his presence like a crackling in the very air beside her. A particular vitality emanated from him, an attitude that said standing still was not his way, that he preferred to be up and doing. Again she experienced a sense of being drawn to him, as if he were someone known to her, someone she liked and trusted.

That thought diverted her, and she missed another note. Recovering, she played more carefully, drawing in to herself, trying to pretend he was not there. When the piece was over, he turned the page.

“You play well,” he said. “Do you know this one?”

“Aye, I know it, but I do not think it lends itself so easily to dancing as the one after it does,” she said. She knew that she ought to point out to him that since no one had properly introduced them yet, they ought not to be speaking, but in view of his kindness in turning her pages, such a reminder seemed churlish. She held her tongue, playing a few bars of the next piece so that the dancers could make ready. Before they all were in place, however, her hostess returned with another young woman at her side.

“Miss MacCrichton, I have just learned that Miss Carlisle twisted her ankle earlier today and would welcome an excuse to avoid the dancing. She has asked me to let her play for the dancers instead, so if you do not mind…”

“Not at all,” Pinkie said, smiling at Miss Carlisle. “I hope your injury is not a serious one.”

“No, no,” Miss Carlisle replied, glancing flirtatiously at Kintyre. “The merest twinge, I promise you, but I am afraid that if I dance, I may injure it more, and if I am not otherwise employed, the gentlemen will keep asking me.”

“Do you know this air?”

“Oh, yes, I can play anything at all. Is that the one you have chosen? It will do very well, I’m sure. Thank you.”

Pinkie stood up and stepped away from the bench to let her sit down, which she did with a great flourish and rustling of silken skirts. Her fingers were sure as she touched the keys, and her competence soon became clear. She played the same few bars that Pinkie had played before, then glanced up, her expression altering ludicrously when she saw that the two of them were alone at the piano.

“But where did he go?”

Pinkie, too, was staring at Kintyre’s back as he strode away. He had left them without a word. Clearly, Miss Carlisle had expected him to continue turning pages for her, and was annoyed that he would not. Pinkie was irritated, too. Simple manners might have suggested to Kintyre that he ask her to dance. Everyone else had partners, so there were no other young men standing idle.

Instead, however, his lordship strode across the room to where the beautiful girl who had danced earlier with Chuff was talking to an older man. She looked angry, but Kintyre walked up to her as bold as brass and put his hand on her arm. Then he turned to the man with her, and whatever he said to him must have made the other man angry, too, because he turned and walked out of the room.

“What the devil is Sir Renfrew Campbell doing here?” Michael demanded, watching with lingering irritation as the older man walked away.

“He said he came for me,” Bridget retorted. “I thought you had made it plain that I won’t marry him, Michael.”

“I did.”

“Then what madness possessed him to sail all the way to London—well, to Bristol, at all events—from Poll Beither Bay, which is what he said he did?”

“Keep your voice down, lass,” Michael said. “You do not want to make a gift of our affairs to everyone in this room.”

“I won’t, but is he mad, Michael? I think he must be, do not you?”

“I expect he has business in London, lassie. If he is here tonight, it is because he has friends in the beau monde with entree to the first circles. Don’t bother your head about him.”

“That is easy for you to say. That madman does not want to marry you. He told me I would be a beautiful addition to Dunbeither House, a perfect hostess for his friends and a mother for his children. He makes my skin creep, Michael.”

“Aye, perhaps, but he cannot force you to marry him, Bridget.”

A foppish young man approached, clearly with the intent of asking her to dance, so Michael left them and wandered away to look for a terrace or some other place where he could escape the noise for a while. He had been glad to see his sister dancing with MacCrichton earlier, but he could not see that she had made any great impression on the lad, for he had not sought her out again. He had, in fact, spent more time talking to the gentleman she danced with now than to any of the ladies.

Pinkie did not speak to Kintyre again that evening, but as the days and evenings passed, she saw him frequently, and each time the sense of familiarity grew, although she could not imagine where she might have seen him before. He and his sister, Lady Bridget Mingary—for she had quickly learned the beauty’s identity—seemed to be present at nearly every social event that the ladies from Faircourt House attended. Kintyre nearly always escorted his sister, but although Chuff and Duncan frequently escorted the ladies of their own household, they were not nearly so consistent in this duty as Kintyre was.

The Saturday night following the dinner party, everyone who was anyone in London attended the ball that the Rothwells gave in Pinkie’s honor. Rothwell even managed to present her to the Dowager Princess of Wales, who joined them for dinner along with other noteworthy guests. Lesser persons began arriving afterward.

Standing in the reception line with the Rothwells and her family, Pinkie greeted newcomers as they entered, feeling as if she were doing so in a dream. She did not feel that she really knew any of the guests, even those whom she had met since her arrival in London. Everyone had been kind to her, but she could not help wondering if they would be as kind to the daughter of Red Mag and Daft Geordie. There were moments when she wanted to speak her parents’ names aloud in company, just to see what the reaction would be, but she could not do so, of course. Even if she had had the nerve, she would not betray her family so.