“What do you mean, ‘we aren’t celebrating Christmas’?” Eloise MacTaggert-Harris demanded, jabbing a finger at her middle brother. “It’s only three days away!”
Aden finished his bite of venison and washed that down with a swallow of whisky. “Just what I said, Piuthar. This is Scotland. We dunnae celebrate Christmas here.”
“Why the devil not?”
“Eloise,” her mother admonished, though from Lady Aldriss’s grimace she knew precisely what Aden was talking about and had intended to ignore it until someone brought it up. At least that was what Jane had to assume, since she’d spent the last day and a half wrapping and boxing gifts brought all the way up with them from London.
“It’s illegal here,” Aden returned. “It’s been illegal here since Cromwell.”
“But Cromwell banned Christmas nearly two hundred years ago. And it only lasted for what, fifteen years?” Eloise’s new husband, Matthew Harris, put in. “If I recall my tutor’s droning on about it correctly, that is.”
“In England, it only lasted fifteen years. Here, nae a one of yer English kings or parliaments bothered to lift the ban. We go to church, and we go about our day, just like any other day.”
“But I brought gifts,” Eloise protested.
Lord Aldriss chuckled from the head of the table. “Gifts, my dear, are what Hogmanay is for. That and setting things afire.”
Jane put a hand to her chest. Good heavens. She knew the MacTaggerts were thought of as barbarians by the rest of London, but for the most part they’d been charming and rather warmhearted. But this didn’t sound at all civilized. Or safe.
“Setting what things afire?” Miranda MacTaggert, Aden’s bride and Matthew Harris’s sister, asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Do I need to hide my clothes?”
“Nae,” Aden answered. “First, we clean the house, and the fireplaces especially, to be rid of the burdens of the year. On Hogmanay eve we saine the house—bless the house, I mean—by sprinkling about water from a river crossed by both the living and the dead. Then we burn juniper branches in all the fireplaces to choke out the rest of the bad spirits hiding in the corners.”
“After that,” Niall took up from Aden, “we throw open all the doors and windows to send the regrets and burdens away and let in the fresh air of the new year. That’s followed by a dram of whisky and breakfast.”
“This sounds like an excuse to clean the house,” Amy said, frowning. “And it seems very smoky.”
“Aye, and uncivilized, I reckon,” her husband, Niall, returned with a grin. “But that’s nae all of it. We have to all sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ together, holding hands, and then we go visiting the houses of relatives and friends. It’s good luck to be the first guest of the new year. We begin that right at midnight.”
“I heard it’s especially good luck if your guest is tall, dark, and handsome,” Temperance, Lady Glendarril, said with a sly smile. “No doubt the three of you were very good luck.”
“That depends on who ye ask, my lass,” Coll rumbled with a faint grin.
Jane immediately conjured an image of tall, dark, and handsome Brennan Andrews. He’d spent a great deal of the day at Aldriss House yesterday, but today he must have been in his quiet home doing his sketches and measuring, while she’d been attempting to box a saddle. That hadn’t gone at all well.
“And then we sleep the rest of the day, I hope?” Amy countered, rubbing her pregnant belly.
“Ye can if ye wish, love. But after breakfast we exchange gifts. When evening comes again, we all go down to the village and light torches. Coll’s been known to swing a fireball about his head for a good mile as we parade along.”
“Nae this year. I dunnae wish to fling sparks on any of the lasses,” Coll said.
“Of course ye will, Coll,” his father protested. “It’s our tradition!”
“Anyway,” Aden took up again, “then we all gather at the shore of Loch an Daimh and cast the flames into the water.”
“To cast out the rest of the evil spirits, I presume?” Temperance asked.
“Aye. If ye can, ye should always begin the year with nae evil spirits in yer house. Or yer life.” Aden grinned.
Jane couldn’t tell if they believed all of the superstition or if they simply, as Lord Aldriss had put it, liked burning things. It seemed more wild than festive to her, but of course none of the other women in the house seemed to think it all intimidating. Lady Aldriss had put on a frown, but then as the matriarch she was the most practical of them all.
“You do know it’ll be the first of January. In the Scottish Highlands,” the countess said. “We are not going to risk anyone getting fever or chills.”
“We march with damned kilts on, woman,” Lord Aldriss protested. “Ye can bundle up as much as ye like. In fact, I recall ye carrying a torch or two yerself in the first few years ye were here.”
The countess blushed. “That was a very long time ago.”
“I’d like to drive away bad spirits,” Amy said. “I have a few I’d like never to see again.”
“As do I,” Miranda said feelingly.
“I will definitely be marching with a torch,” Temperance MacTaggert added. “Perhaps two torches.”
“Before we all get carried away with torches,” Eloise put in, “I want to be certain I understand. We don’t exchange gifts at Christmas, but we do on New Year’s Day, yes?”
“Aye.”
“Well, that’s fine, then. You should have begun with that, Aden.”
The middle MacTaggert brother shrugged, his shoulders brushing against his longish hair. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Well, at least now Jane had an additional week to finish wrapping all the gifts. Lady Aldriss might have hired her out of charity, but that only left Jane more determined to be useful. And the countess wasn’t the only one who’d asked for assistance. At least wrapping and boxing gave her mind time to wander, even if it had spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about yesterday in the library with Brennan Andrews. She couldn’t recall a more pleasant day—or a more interesting man.
As dinner ended, the stout, ginger-haired butler, Pogan, approached Lord Glendarril with a note. In London it would have been delivered on a proper silver salver, but here the butler simply handed it over.
Coll opened it, then frowned. “Brennan wants to know if I can go see him tomorrow at ten o’clock. He has some more questions and wants to look like a proper architect with an office and drawing board, I reckon. I cannae go, though; I’ve a meeting in the village.”
“I’ll go,” Temperance said.
“I can accompany Lady Glendarril,” Jane blurted, no doubt startling everyone who’d forgotten she was even there.
“Aye, that’ll do,” Coll agreed. “Brennan likely has a few more questions about paint colors and such.”
Temperance wrinkled her nose. “Then I’m definitely going. I’m half convinced you would wish everything painted in clan Ross colors, with brown curtains.”
He leaned sideways to plant a kiss on his wife’s temple. “As long as ye dunnae choose white lace curtains, I reckon I’ll be doing naught but nodding my head, anyway. And thank ye, Jane.”
“Certainly,” Jane chirped, hoping she didn’t look as warm as she felt.
“What happened to Cousin Brennan’s eye, anyway?” Eloise asked.
“Yes,” Lady Aldriss seconded. “He had two of them the last time I saw him.”
“It was my fault,” Coll stated, a brief scowl crossing his face. “I’d just gotten Nuckelavee, and he didnae mind as well then as he does now. Th—”
“Nuckelavee doesnae mind anyone but ye, and he nae once has,” Niall countered. “That horse is a devil.”
“Aye, but he’s my devil. Anyway, Brennan came by to see him, and said he didnae look so fierce. I’d just been thrown off into a field of thistle, and I wasnae feeling very friendly, so I told him he could have the black if he could ride him.”
“Coll, you shouldn’t have,” his sister admonished.
“I was eighteen, and Brennan was two-and-twenty, so dunnae ye go saying that I led him astray. But I shouldnae have let him ride Nuckelavee. Nae when I couldnae do it yet.” He sighed. “Anyway, he stayed aboard for about ten seconds, and then Nuckelavee jumped in the air and landed on his back through a fence. Brennan took a nail down his face and broke his leg. The leg mended; his eye didnae.” He dug into his plate again. “But that was eleven years ago and he’s nae once held a grudge about it, so done is done. His wife didnae look at me too kindly for a time, though.”
Murmurs of “poor Eithne” went around the table at that, and Coll even crossed himself. Brennan had told Jane that he’d lost his wife seven years earlier. He’d been married for at least four years, then—not that that mattered. He’d been a husband, and he’d lost his wife. The amount of time they’d had together didn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that he’d seemed genuinely to love her, and that now his house felt quiet and alone.
“I was about to take that wager,” Aden said after a moment, “so I feel more than a wee bit grateful to Brennan for doing it in my stead.”
“Good heavens,” the countess breathed. “When I think of the peril the three of you were in after I left Scotland, it keeps me awake at night.”
“Ye reckon ye could have stopped me from a damned thing I wanted to do?”
Jane looked over at Coll MacTaggert. At more than five inches above six feet and all muscle, the viscount likely had never been stopped from doing anything—except perhaps by his bride. She wished Temperance well, because being married to such an imposing man would terrify her. Just speaking to him gave her the shivers.
“That isn’t the point,” his mother countered. “You needed a guiding hand, and clearly your father declined to provide it.”
“And yet there they are,” the earl stated. “Nae a one dead and all of them tall, fine lads wed to the best yer England has to offer.”
As the two of them began to argue over which had had the greater hand in seeing their sons married, Jane went back to picking at her dinner. Men like the MacTaggerts were a large reason she remained rather thankful to have missed her debut Season and all the ones that followed. If one of them had decided to pursue her, she would likely have fainted to the floor. It would have been worse, though, to have attended all the dances and the recitals and the dinners and have no one notice her at all. That was the far more likely outcome of her imaginary trip through Society. At least now part of her role was to avoid being noticed. She excelled at that.
As dinner ended, everyone adjourned to the drawing room. The countess gestured at her as everyone began to settle in to listen to Aden read a Scottish ghost story. “A word, my dear?”
“Of course, my lady. Should I fetch you a wrap?”
“No, Jane.” Lady Aldriss took Jane’s arm, pulling her away from the others. “I know you don’t think yourself necessary here.”
Jane blushed. “My lady, I am exceedingly grate—”
“The thing is, Lord Aldriss has asked me to join him for a holiday, directly after Hogmanay. A month or more, in Italy and Spain.” The countess’s mouth curved in a slight smile. “Places I’ve been, but where I once asked him to take me, and he refused.”
“Oh, that’s lovely, then,” Jane offered, since something seemed required.
“Yes, it is. You need to make a decision, though. You may accompany me, in which case we will assume you mean to remain in my employ, or you may remain here with the rest of the family through the winter as our … guest. For however long you wish to stay, really. Or I will happily write you a letter of recommendation if you wish to find another position closer to London. I know you are more comfortable there.”
That was it, then. Accept that she would keep Lady Aldriss company for the remainder of that woman’s life, whether she was necessary or not; be reconciled to being a useless bit of charity the MacTaggerts would feel obligated to include on all of their jaunts and holidays; or leave and find a position less auspicious, if more useful, with one of the countess’s elderly friends. And then do the same thing over and over again until she was too old to be useful to anyone.
“I see,” she said slowly. “When do you need my answer?”
“By Hogmanay, I would think.” Lady Aldriss squeezed her hand. “You are loved and wanted here, Jane. I want you to feel that you have some stability, whatever you choose.”
Jane nodded, feeling rather hollowed-out inside. “Of course. Do you require me now?”
“You don’t wish to stay?”
“I’m a little tired,” she returned, “but of course I’ll stay if you need me.”
“Jane, you … Of course you may go.” The countess sighed. “Or remain. And since we have an additional week now to box gifts, please take tomorrow to do as you please. After you accompany Temperance to Brennan’s home, that is. I may go down to the village for a bit more shopping.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Jane said, dipping a curtsy and leaving the room before anyone could call her back, and before she could hear the silence if they didn’t.
Upstairs she walked to her window and looked outside at the silent trees and drifts of snow. Visiting Europe for weeks might have been a dream for other young ladies, including all of the ones presently downstairs. For her, well, she didn’t have Italian, and her Spanish was horrible. In addition, Lord and Lady Aldriss, whatever they might say, were of course attempting a reconciliation. The last thing the countess needed was to be worrying over whether her companion had been overset at having to attend some soiree where she didn’t know the language.
“Damnation,” she muttered, lowering her forehead against the cold glass. Making a decision was difficult enough. Making one that would decide her entire future … Heavens, the last decision she’d made had seen her sacked. The employment with Lady Aldriss had simply happened, without her ever seeking it.
Blowing out her breath, she retrieved the Scottish architecture book and sat by her small fire. Dwelling on the impossible now would only keep her awake. Determinedly she opened the book and began reading.
Most of the dwellings in the Highlands seemed to have been either mud and peat huts or giant stone fortresses meant to keep the English and the other clans at bay, but the author had an amusing, light touch and a great many interesting stories to go with the facts and histories. In her opinion, Mr. B. Conchar might have had more literary success if he’d simply told the tales without the architectural details.
Every time she read the word “architecture” her mind went to Brennan Andrews and the way he’d so effortlessly sketched the library of her dreams right in front of her eyes. She meant to have the drawing framed as soon as she could manage it—not that she anticipated having a wall on which to hang it anytime soon—and presently had it pressed between other papers in her small writing desk to keep it safe.
Around her the house began to quiet, but she kept reading until her eyes would no longer stay open. Then she closed the book and wandered back over to one of the nearest of her trio of bedchamber windows. The pale moonlight turned the snow outside a silvery blue. It looked frightfully cold, but she couldn’t deny that the effect was lovely and a bit magical. No wonder Highlanders still felt the need to burn juniper branches and light torches to banish dark spirits. If those things could live anywhere, it would be here.
And there she stood, indulging her imagination when she had practicalities to decide. “Nodcock,” she muttered, and pulled the curtains closed. Back when she’d lived with her parents in a small cottage in Derbyshire she’d had dreams—simple ones, things she could imagine happening to her. Her, married to a solicitor or an army captain, as opposed to her being taken by pirates and ending up a princess on some foreign shore. Those imaginings were for young ladies with wealth and comfort to buoy their dreams.
But then her parents had died within six months of each other, and repaying doctors and other debts she hadn’t known about until afterward had taken the house. That was when she’d stopped daydreaming. She hadn’t had time for it. In fact, until yesterday she couldn’t remember engaging in such fanciful imaginings. Perhaps Scotland did possess a little magic.
Regardless, as she neatly folded her gown and pulled on her simple white night rail, she allowed her mind to wander toward a one-eyed Scottish widower with a clear talent for drawing and who, she imagined, would be fond of sitting by the fire in the evenings reading aloud in his charming brogue to his beloved, who of course very closely resembled herself.
There would of course be hand-holding and kissing and other things that became rather heated, because he would of course be a splendid and virile hus—
Bagpipes screeched through her brain, and Jane sat straight up in bed. “Oh, for God’s sake!” she hissed, only belatedly realizing that light shone around the edges of the curtains and that she had, in fact, been dreaming. And some very intimate dreams, at that.
According to the small clock on the mantel it was once again six o’clock in the morning, just as it had been yesterday and the day before when the torture had begun. Given the lack of success she’d had in ignoring the racket previously, this morning she flung off the covers and got dressed, this time choosing a long-sleeved brown and yellow gown. It was still frightfully plain, but it was also her best.
As she reached the foyer the butler, Pogan, straightened from tying a rope about the neck of Brògan, the black English spaniel Aden had adopted after she had stolen one of his boots back in London. Four black puppies, now nearly the same size as their dam, bounded about the butler’s feet.
“Good morning, Miss Jane,” he said, nodding. “The dogs and I are about to make the rounds in the garden.”
“I’ll see to that,” she decided. “You have a great many other things to see to.”
“That I do,” he returned with a smile, handing over the rope. “Thank ye. I reckon ye’re better acquainted with them than I am, anyway.”
“That I am.”
She bent down to scratch Brògan between the ears, then headed outside with the furry pack when Pogan opened the door for them all. There had originally been five puppies, but Smythe, the butler at Oswell House, had been gifted one of them. They’d been born on his bed, after all, and he did seem to adore them.
Brògan stayed by her side as she picked her way through the light snow to the garden, but the pups charged out in every direction, black dots zooming across the white ground. Cold crept up her legs beneath her skirts, and she tugged her heavy wrap closer around her shoulders.
The bagpipes were even louder outside, and she looked toward the roof of Aldriss Park to see a kilt-clad man standing there silhouetted against the sky, pipes in his arms. She wanted to throw a snowball at him, but she’d never be able to reach that far. Instead, she trod up and down the garden, the cold slowly leaving her legs as she marched.
Walking the dogs was likely the most useful thing she’d done since she’d joined the Oswell-MacTaggert household, she reflected. Oh, she detested being someone’s charitable project, even when the someone was as kind and generous as Lady Aldriss. The truth was, though, that she required that charity. Without it, she might well have been on the streets by now. That put her new trio of choices into a better perspective, but they remained choices. And she needed to decide.
“Jane, what in the world are you doing out there?” came from above and behind her. “You’ll catch your death!”
She turned to look up at the house. Lady Aldriss leaned out a window, a scowl on her face. “I’m just helping with the dogs!” she called back. “I’ll be in in a moment. Do you need me?”
“This is your day to do as you please, remember? Just do it indoors, where it’s warm.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The countess retreated, and the window shut again. Yes, Lady Aldriss and all the MacTaggerts were kind and generous, and they told her she was part of the family, but if she hadn’t stood up for Amy, they wouldn’t even know her name.
After another ten minutes she couldn’t ignore her cold fingers and toes any longer, and she herded the dogs back into the house. Thank goodness she’d volunteered to accompany Lady Glendarril to Mr. Andrews’s home, because she generally had no idea what to do with herself when left to her own devices. Read, of course, but when she closed a book she always found herself back in her own skin, and that did, on occasion, grate.
Shortly before nine o’clock Lord Glendarril and his great black and nearly murderous Friesian warhorse galloped down to the village. Thankfully, Lady Glendarril decided they should set off for Mr. Andrews’s house before the rest of the clan could head out to the stables to begin making torches for Hogmanay.
“Such strange customs,” the actress and viscountess said, settling back in the heavy coach.
“They all seem ancient, which I rather like,” Jane offered, taking the rear-facing seat opposite.
“Yes. A torch parade on a whim might seem silly, but knowing it’s been done for the past five hundred years lends it some dignity.” Temperance Hartwood sent her a sideways glance. “This must not go beyond us, but do you find the bagpipes at dawn as annoying as I do?”
Jane sat forward. “Oh, yes. They’re horrible!”
“Coll says it announces to everyone in the valley that the laird is well and all is calm, which I imagine is another ancient tradition, but I find it very alarming every blasted morning.”
“So is there a more strident bit of music they play when all is not calm?” Jane wondered, blushing when she realized she’d spoken aloud.
Temperance, though, only laughed. “I hate even to imagine it.” Stifling a yawn, she turned to look out the window. “The mornings have been lovely here, but I’m still more accustomed to very late nights and sleeping well into the day.”
“But now you’re Lady Glendarril. And eventually you’ll be Lady Aldriss, and the bagpipes will be on your roof.”
“Then the bagpipes will begin playing at noon every day, or the piper will find that the laird of the house is not at all well, because I will have murdered him.” She grinned. “Although as you said, that would likely only make the tunes worse.”
Of all the MacTaggerts, Jane likely understood Temperance the least. They were the closest in age of all the females, with Temperance but five years younger than she was, but this was a woman who’d had wealth and family growing up and had willingly turned her back on both to avoid being pushed into a marriage she didn’t want. And of all things, she’d chosen to make a living as a stage actress. Standing in front of hordes of people every night, people just waiting for her to make a misstep, and she’d wowed them all.
“Were you ever afraid?” she asked, knowing she would be better off simply keeping her mouth shut rather than risking inserting her foot into it. “Onstage, I mean.”
“No,” the viscountess returned, facing Jane again. “Not onstage. Before I stepped onstage, yes. The anticipation, I suppose, the worry that I would forget all my lines or trip and fall into the audience or catch my costume on fire on the footlights. Once I stepped out, though, well, the reality I suppose was far less frightening than all of my imaginings.”
Perhaps that was her difficulty, Jane decided. She spent a great deal of time anticipating trouble and never had that moment of metaphorically stepping onstage. Stifling a sigh, she turned her own gaze outside.
The village was larger than she’d expected, with two or three dozen shops, taverns, and various other buildings, and four or five times that many homes, with a large church in the center, and a curving main street with public stables at one end and a small waterfront and docks at the other.
Everything looked quaint and pretty with the layer of snow everywhere, though she imagined in the springtime the road would be nearly impassable from all the mud. The coach continued up past the stable and around the hill just beyond, winding upward as they climbed. At the top it flattened out, with three homes well spaced from one another occupying the crest.
They rocked to a stop in front of the last house, which was bordered by a white wooden fence and a small front garden that must have been lovely in springtime but now sat bleak and icy. The front door opened and Brennan Andrews stepped outside, pulling on a coat as he approached. “Thank ye for coming here to meet me,” he said, pulling open the coach’s door and offering a hand to Lady Glendarril. “All my papers are here, and they dunnae suffer the cold and wet at all well.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” the viscountess said. “Coll informed you that he has a meeting?”
“Aye. And ye’ve…” He turned, and his one-eyed gaze met Jane’s. “Ye’ve brought someone much easier on the eye in his stead, for which I thank ye,” he continued smoothly, though she had no idea what he’d originally meant to say.
He caught her gloved fingers in his. Firming his grip a little, he helped her down to the snowy ground. “Good morning,” she said belatedly.
“Good morning, lass,” he returned, still holding her fingers. “I’ve put on a pot and found some tea, as I hear ye English lasses prefer that to coffee.”
“Hot tea sounds wonderful,” she commented, abruptly wishing she could put this moment beneath glass and keep it forever. Just her and Brennan Andrews standing in the snow and holding hands, his fingers warm through her gloves.
“If we stay outside any longer,” Temperance said, a shiver in her voice, “I’m going to have to request a dram of whisky in that tea.”
Brennan released Jane’s hand. “Aye. Let’s go in then, shall we?”
And the moment ended. Her breath visible in the air, Jane stepped sideways to allow the two actual participants in the day’s meeting to precede her. Halfway to the door, though, Brennan turned around to face her.
“Where are my manners?” he muttered, stepping back and offering his arm. “I’m happy to show ye my house, Jane. I hope ye like it.”
Why did he hope she liked his house? And why did sudden, sharp excitement dig through her chest in response? “I’m certain I will,” she said aloud, putting her hand on his forearm and keeping her mouth firmly closed over her silly questions—and the very small, very quiet hope that the answers were the stuff of her daydreams.