Amanda Scott (17 page)

“Aye, well, it is still a wheen o’ blethers, so lang may his lum reek.”

Pinkie chuckled. “Does Mr. Coombs have a chimney that smokes?”

Roddy shrugged, but his eyes glinted with sudden humor.

A single sharp rap accompanied the opening of the door, and a maid said with audible relief, “There you are, miss. I looked high and low till one of the stable lads said to look in the wee lad’s bedchamber. What on earth is that great beast doing in here?”

“Master Roddy is just now going to take him back down to the stables,” Pinkie said soothingly. “Are you not, my dear?”

“Aye, sure, I expect so,” the boy said, making a face at her.

Ignoring it, Pinkie said to the maid, “Why were you seeking me?”

“Lord Kintyre has called, miss. He asked especially for you.” The maid blushed, adding, “Her ladyship said I should ask you to come down.”

“Heaven bless me,” Pinkie said, looking down at herself. “I’m scarcely dressed to receive callers.”

“His lordship did say as he has something of import that he wishes to ask you, miss.” Blushing even more, the maid avoided her eye.

“Foolish creature, do you think he means to make me an offer? He will do no such thing, so you can take that daft look off your face. And you,” she added, turning to the chuckling boy on the cot, “you take that dog to the stables,
now!”

“Aye, sure, I will,” he said, still chuckling. When she continued to look at him, he sighed and swung his feet to the floor, pushing the dog out of his way to do so. The dog looked no more interested in leaving the room than the boy did.

“Shall I go and tell the mistress that you want to change your dress before receiving his lordship, miss?”

“No, thank you,” Pinkie said. “He will not want to kick his heels for half an hour, which is what it would be, or more, before Doreen would decide that I was presentable. I shall go down as I am unless her ladyship has other callers.”

“No, miss, only his lordship.”

“Very well, then. Is my hair tidy?”

Doreen had brushed the powder out of it after the drawing room, smoothing it back from her forehead and temples, then catching up several locks at the back with a blue satin bow, and leaving the rest to hang loose.

“Aye, miss, it looks a treat.”

Pinkie thought it more likely made her look like a schoolgirl, especially in the simple blue frock she wore over a demi-hoop; but whatever Kintyre wanted from her, she doubted that he would notice or care what she wore.

On the threshold, she turned back to say, “I am not leaving you to decide when to obey me, Roddy. You come along now, and bring that dog with you.”

“Dinna fash yerself; we’re coming. Come along, lad.”

The dog heaved itself upright, and in the moment before it stepped to the floor Pinkie feared for the cot.

Roddy draped an arm across the dog’s shoulders and gestured gallantly with his other hand for Pinkie to precede them. She did so, hurrying down two flights of stairs toward the gallery. At the head of the second flight, she turned back, intending to warn Roddy to take the dog the rest of the way by the service stair, but he had already turned. One hand still rested on the dog’s withers.

She smiled, but as she did, the dog stopped, lifted its head, sniffed the air, and turned toward her. Its ears perked up, and its head stretched toward her, its nose still atwitch. Then it charged.

Gasping, Pinkie leapt back, awkwardly grabbing the banister to keep from falling. Her first thought was that the beast had suddenly decided she was an enemy, but it did not even glance her way before it dashed down the stairs. Looking back at Roddy, to see the dismay she felt reflected on his face, she snatched up her skirts and ran down the second flight, hoping she could somehow prevent social disaster.

“Lord, please do not let Himself be in the drawing room,” she muttered under her breath. “Better still, send that beast to the kitchen.” The thought that the dog might have caught the scent of meat roasting on the spit for dinner cheered her, but seeing a long tail disappear into the drawing room speedily replaced cheer with gloom. A cry of dismay from inside lent wings to her feet.

Under other circumstances her haste would have drawn instant censure from either of the two females sitting with Kintyre. As it was, no one paid her the slightest heed. She skidded to a halt, dumbstruck by the sight that greeted her.

The great dog stood on its hind legs, forepaws pressed against Kintyre’s broad chest, its long pink tongue lapping his grinning face as though it were a choice piece of beef.

The earl had not powdered his dark hair. It was brushed smoothly back, and a black ribbon confined it neatly at the nape of his neck. He wore a simple dark riding coat, buckskin breeches, and polished leather riding boots—the English “country look” that had become fashionable everyday town wear for young men. His breeches were fashionably tight, too, molding his muscular thighs and other even more unmentionable parts of his anatomy. But, for once, it was not his blatant maleness or his dress that held Pinkie in thrall.

“Oh!”

Lady Agnes, clutching her breast with one hand, the other clapped to her mouth, lowered the latter to exclaim, “Bless my soul, but I thought Kintyre was sped! Where did that dreadful beast spring from?”

“From my bedchamber, Grandmama,” Roddy said, stepping past the silent Pinkie. “I brought him into the house, but I was taking him back out to the stables just now when, all of a sudden, he leapt away down the stairs.”

“He must have caught my scent from the stairway,” Kintyre said. “Down, Cailean. Where are your manners, sir?”

Tail wagging, the dog obeyed.

Roddy’s eyes widened. “Is he yours?”

“Aye, he is.” Kintyre smiled at him. “I can see that you have taken excellent care of him. I thank you for that most sincerely.”

“He saved my life,” Roddy said simply. “Did he run away from your house?”

“Nay, then, not if you mean from my house here in London. I think he must have run away from his new master, though, and followed me here.”

Mary said, “Did you sell him to someone in a nearby town, sir? You should send word to his master that he is here.”

“Unfortunately, your ladyship, his master is in Scotland, near Dalmally.”

Lady Agnes said bluntly, “He never followed you all that way, sir. ’Twould be impossible.”

“One naturally hesitates to contradict you, ma’am,” Kintyre said, “but such a thing is not impossible for a deerhound. Their greatest gift is their ability to follow scent on the wind. We were fortunate on our journey in that we encountered no rain, so the conditions were doubtless excellent for his purpose. Moreover, my aunt’s Edinburgh house lies near the outskirts of town rather than in its center, and we passed through no other cities before reaching London. Here, of course, he had no way to discern my scent amidst all the others he met. As you doubtless have noticed yourself, London reeks. For that matter,” he added with a reminiscent smile, “it is as well that I did not succumb to my man’s repeated pleas to douse myself with Hungary water or some other, equally noxious but fashionable potion, or Cailean might not have recognized my scent here today.”

“’Tis fortunate that you arrived whilst he was in the house,” Mary said.

Kintyre shook his head. “Fortune had little to do with that, ma’am, unless you count the fortune last evening that let me overhear a particular conversation. ’Twas mention of an enormous dog leaping out of nowhere to save the boy that drew my attention. There are few deerhounds in England, fewer if any in London, and I doubt that any other breed would evoke such a description as the one I heard. I instantly feared that Cailean had run away from the man to whom I sold him, and unfortunately, that appears to be the case.”

“You should not have sold him,” Roddy said sternly. “Why did you?”

“I have many times cursed myself for it,” Kintyre admitted ruefully. “At the time, however, it seemed the only thing to do. The question now, however, is how I am going to get him back to Glenmore. Doubtless the man thinks I’ve cheated him.”

“’Twould be folly to dash back to Scotland before the Season is done, sir,” Lady Agnes said. “You must not think of such a thing. Surely, Glenmore—for I collect that it is the man to whom you sold this animal—will understand that you cannot do such a thing. Send a message by courier, explaining the whole.”

“I will do what I must,” Kintyre said, casting a puzzled glance at the still silent Pinkie. “First, however, I shall remove him from your household. I can only express again my sincere thanks for your care of him, and hope that he did not cause you any trouble.”

“None at all,” Mary said.

“He is wonderful,” Roddy said. “May I come and visit him before you take him back to Scotland, sir? Or might he visit us here?”

“You may certainly visit him,” Kintyre said, “if your mother approves.”

“She will,” Roddy said, kneeling to pet the dog.

“He is too large for a house pet,” Lady Agnes said.

Mary smiled. “He has excellent manners, ma’am, and we owe him much. Cailean is as welcome here as you are yourself, sir.”

“Thank you,” Kintyre said, motioning to the dog, which got gracefully to its feet. “Perhaps, in that case, you will not object if I invite Miss MacCrichton to ride in the park with me tomorrow morning.”

“No objection at all, sir,” Mary said, “but you must ask her, you know.”

He faced Pinkie, who still had not spoken. Nor did she speak now. She stood like a marble statue, staring at him.

“Well, lass,” he said gently, “will you ride with me?”

“Aye, my lord,” she said, so quietly that she feared he could not have heard her. “Aye,” she said more firmly. “I would like that very much, sir, thank you.”

“I’ll call for you at nine then, if that will suit you,” he said.

“Can I go, too,” Roddy asked, “and will you bring Cailean?”

“If you like,” Kintyre said, his gaze still locked with Pinkie’s, “and if your mama does not object.”

“She won’t,” Roddy said confidently.

This time, however, his confidence proved to be misplaced, because Mary said quietly, “You must first ask permission of your papa, my dear, and do not forget that Mr. Coombs will be coming to you at ten.”

Roddy muttered under his breath.

Kintyre said, “Will nine o’clock suit you, Miss MacCrichton?”

With difficulty, she found sufficient voice to say, “Certainly, sir.”

He had made his leg and departed with the dog at his side before she could collect her wits. Even then, she could think of nothing sensible to say to the others, let alone think how to share her shock with them.

The sight of Kintyre without powder, dressed in simple clothing and standing beside the great dog, had made her see in a flash that, contrary to what she had told herself before, he was the living embodiment of her ghost.

A
S SOON AS SHE
could collect wits enough to invent an excuse to leave the drawing room, Pinkie went in search of Chuff. She found him in his bedchamber, sitting in an armchair in a dark-red silk dressing gown, contemplating the fire with his slippered feet propped on the fender. Looking up at her entrance, he smiled.

Without stopping to consider her words, she blurted, “You’ll think I’m mad, Chuff, but Kintyre is my ghost.”

“What?” Shifting his feet to the floor with a thud, he turned around in the chair to look at her in astonishment.

“It’s the truth, I tell you. He’s my ghost come to life. I saw a slight resemblance before, but I thought I had imagined it.”

“You’re daft, Pinkie. Kintyre’s as much a man as any we’ve met, more of a man than most, in fact.”

Pinkie sighed, trying to contain her agitation. “I know this sounds daft, Chuff, and I know full well that he’s a man. Still, he’s the embodiment of my ghost. I ought to have understood it all when I first saw the dog.”

“You ought to have seen what?”

“That Cailean—that’s what Kintyre calls him—”

“Hold on a minute,” he said. “Begin at the beginning. Are you saying that the dog that’s been eating its head off in our stables for the past twenty-four hours belongs to Kintyre?”

“Aye, and that I ought to have seen that it’s the same dog that walks with my ghost, but I didn’t—not till I saw them together. I knew he was the same breed, but my dog is always at a distance, walking beside a tall man in a kilt. Cailean has always been beside Roddy, so he looked bigger to me. Still…”

“That’s utter nonsense,” Chuff said. “I won’t say you imagined your ghost, lass, but you are surely imagining things now.”

Silence fell between them, and Pinkie looked at him for a long moment before she said quietly, “You still don’t really believe in my ghost, do you?”

“Be sensible, Pinkie,” he begged. “When you first spoke of it, you were but a bairn. You had conversations with God, too, when you were distressed. For me to think you’d invented a ghost was only logical. I believe that you believe in it, but that does not alter the fact that Kintyre is no ghost. Moreover, if you believe he is your ghost come to life and have already endowed him with all the virtues you believe your ghost to have, that
is
daft, lass.”

“Aye, it would be, if that were what I had done,” she said tartly. “I am sorry to have troubled you, sir. I shall leave you to your contemplation.”

Turning on her heel, she got as far as putting her hand on the doorknob before he said gently, “Hold now, lassie, dinna go.”

She paused, feeling her throat tighten and a burning in her eyes. A moment later, his hand touched her shoulder and he gently turned her to face him.

“Oh, Chuff, I’m not daft; truly I’m not,” she said to his chest.

“Dinna greet, lass,” he said, tilting her chin up so she had to look at him.

“Chuff, he looks exactly like my ghost. I didn’t see how much before, because his hair was always curled in front and powdered, but today he had it combed smooth and tied back, the way my ghost sometimes wears his. It’s just as dark, too, like a raven’s wing. And the dog…When it’s beside him, it’s the same dog.”

Chuff opened his mouth, then closed it and gave her another hug. “Lass,” he said, “maybe it’s the dog you’ve fallen for, rather than the man.”