“Great business must be wrought ere noon.”
HECATE, MACBETH ACT III, SCENE V
Coll opened his bedchamber door at just past six o’clock, before the sun had even risen. Back home, beginning the day early came alongside the responsibility of being his father’s heir, and barring a previous evening down at the tavern when he’d been younger, and an evening in a lass’s bed as he’d gotten older, he was accustomed to starting his day at least an hour before the rest of the house.
Adjusting to London life had been a challenge, with the way the household didn’t return home until nearly dawn and then didn’t rise until noon, but it did give him most mornings to himself.
Even as he finished that thought, though, a figure topped the stairs in front of him. He had the mornings nearly to himself, he amended. “Back from Canterbury, are ye?” he asked, declining to move aside as his younger brother started down the hallway.
Aden patted his coat pocket. “Aye. Seems I’m to be wed on Saturday next. I’d make it today, but Miranda’s sent for her aunt to attend.”
Silently, Coll took in his brother’s loose cravat, half-unbuttoned waistcoat, and disheveled, too-long hair. “And how is Miranda this morning?” he drawled.
“Hush, ye lummox,” Aden countered, lowering his voice. “I need an hour or two of sleep before the MacTaggert lasses take to swooning over the romance of it all.” His sly smile touched his gray-green eyes. “And she’s well, thank ye for asking.”
“I still say ye should elope with her to Scotland, like Niall did with Amy. It’s more fitting if ye’re wed by a Scotsman, even if the minister is a Lowlander—and a blacksmith to boot.”
“Lady Aldriss swears she means to attend this wedding, and I’ll nae wait a month for her to pack her bags.” Aden cocked his head. “And ye dunnae have the days to waste on traveling. Nae when ye’ve less than four weeks now to find a bride for yerself.” He put a protective hand over his pocket again. “And now that I’ve got my bride, ye’ve nae excuse, Coll. Go choose yerself a lass so we dunnae have to fret over Aldriss Park any longer.”
“Ye only have a lass because she asked ye for yer hand,” Coll retorted.
Aden’s grin would’ve made a good number of lasses swoon. “Aye, she did. And I imagine ye could have a lass ask ye today as well, if ye’d stand still long enough for one to catch ye.”
News always spread so damn quickly in London, most likely because everyone lived so close together. “So ye heard about the theater last night, did ye?”
“Miranda told me. She heard it from her brother. Who has a broken nose, by the way.”
“Good.” There were times he found it difficult to believe that Miranda and Matthew Harris were siblings. It was the lass who had most of the common sense, that was for damned certain. And a good share of cleverness, or she’d never have caught the elusive Aden.
Aden narrowed one eye. “I’ll admit that he deserved a good thump, but keep in mind that he’s nae a Highlander. If ye hit him too hard, ye may break him.”
Coll snorted. “I reckon he heard what I had to tell him, and he’ll nae be forgetting it.” Leaning against the balcony railing, he thumped one fist against the well-polished mahogany. “One of us has to keep our head out of the posies and watch out for the family. Given that ye and Niall cannae see past yer lasses any longer, that falls to me.”
“Or,” Aden returned, his tone speculative, “ye could decide that while London has its perils, nae a one of us is a fool and we can look after ourselves, and ye could go find a lass to love ye.”
“I’ve been looking, damn it all.” Coll scowled. “It was one thing when I wanted to find a lass and leave her here when I go back to Scotland. But with all the Sassenach women knowing that, it seems they’re all just as mercenary as me. I’m outnumbered.”
“That ye are. And if ye willnae take a look at the women our sister is putting in front of ye, and ye dunnae trust the ones our mother is putting in front of ye, and ye dunnae want Amy or Miranda introducing ye to any of their friends, then ye’re on yer own, Coll. And the summer days are getting longer.”
“I know that. I’m nae about to put Aldriss in peril. I’m off to Hyde Park this morning to take a gander at the lasses.”
With a nod, Aden continued toward his room across the hallway from Coll’s. “I hope ye find one, bràthair.” He paused in his doorway. “Dunnae be so ferocious. Ye’re a decent man, when the mood strikes ye.”
“I’m trying to be one even when the mood doesnae strike me. If ye see Francesca, tell her I’m doing as I said, and finding my own wife.”
“I’m nae telling our mother anything. I dunnae mean to be the first one to see her at all.” Aden gave a lopsided grin. “She’s fearsome, Coll, but I reckon she didnae reckon on ye.”
“Or mayhap she’s forgotten that I remember her time in Scotland.”
Aden tilted his head. “Have a care, Coll. We’ve all changed in seventeen years. Except ye, of course. Now dunnae go galloping through the park and trample any of the lasses or their wee dogs. They’d nae wed ye after that.”
“I couldnae survive without yer advice, Aden,” Coll said dryly, and headed down the stairs.
He paused on the landing to pat Rory the stuffed deer on the rump. Back at Aldriss Park, Rory had stood proud and dignified in a corner of the library, with a suit of armor on either side of him. Now, after being loaded into a pair of wagons with most of their belongings and every other damned thing they could think of to bring to London that might annoy their mother, Rory was adorned with a skirt around his hind quarters, a bonnet with holes cut for his ears, a man’s cravat around his neck, earbobs and necklaces hung from the tines of his antlers, and a dancing slipper bound to his one raised hoof.
“Lad, ye arenae as dignified as ye once were,” Coll told the stag, “but ye look as though ye’ve been having more fun than I am.”
Breakfast was only partly set out, since the rest of the household wouldn’t be awake for hours yet. Coll requested his horse be saddled, then helped himself to a sizeable stack of ham and some fresh, warm biscuits and butter. Together with two cups of strong coffee, the meal left him feeling fortified enough to brave a morning prancing about in Hyde Park.
Of course, he would rather have been riding off to the Saint Genesius for another conversation with Persephone Jones, but with only four weeks remaining to save Aldriss Park, he couldn’t risk missing any opportunity to find a bride. He’d already put off marriage for longer than he should have, but with two capable younger brothers, his own duty to provide an heir hadn’t seemed as pressing. Lady Aldriss’s proclamation, though, hadn’t left him any choice.
Outside the Oswell House stables and being given a wide berth by the rest of the servants, Gavin stood holding Nuckelavee’s reins in one hand and a handful of carrots in the other. “Yer devil’s in a bit of a froth today, m’laird,” Gavin said, holding up the carrots for the giant to munch on. “Wouldnae let the Sassenach lads near him, even with a bucket of oats as an offering.”
“That’s why we brought ye south with us, Gavin,” he told the groom. “Ye’re the only man that our lad can tolerate, aside from me.” Stepping up, Coll rubbed a hand along the stallion’s arched neck and received a snort and head toss in return.
Nuckelavee was a giant of a black Friesian, descended from a long line of war horses. He had a fancy black frill of fur about his hooves, a great, curling mane and tail, and a bearing that said the lad knew he’d been bred to carry iron-clad knights into battle. He was, after all, named after a horse-shaped sea demon.
Swinging into the saddle, Coll reached down and relieved the groom of a trio of carrots, which he stuffed into a pocket. Nuckelavee hadn’t run off without him yet, but neither of them was particularly fond of London. Having a bribe to hand couldn’t hurt.
“Do ye want company this morning?” Gavin asked, stepping back from the front end of the black.
“Nae. If the countess asks after me, ye can tell her I went to Hyde Park to look over some lasses.”
The groom snorted, clearly doubting that he meant to do as he said. “Aye.”
“You may find some difficulty conversing with any young ladies while you’re riding that monster,” his mother’s cultured voice sounded from behind him.
Damnation. He turned around to see her walking toward him from the direction of the front door of Oswell House. If he rode off now, Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert could rightly call him a coward, but he would be spared the forthcoming verbal brawl. “Lady Aldriss,” he said, nodding.
“My friends are going to stop inviting me to luncheon if you keep insulting their daughters,” she commented, stopping in front of him.
Lord, she was a wee thing, barely reaching his shoulders, even if she should lift up on her toes, which he doubted she would ever do. Tiptoes were no doubt undignified or some other nonsense. “I’d stop insulting their daughters if ye’d stop flinging them at me,” he retorted, circling the restless black about the yard. “I’ve a good pair of eyes. Show ’em to me from a distance and we’d all be happier.”
“Four weeks, Coll,” his mother returned. “You have four weeks to find an English lady, woo her, ask for her hand, and marry her.”
“Do ye truly expect me to wed one of the hothouse flowers from last night, woman? Violet Hampstead? She’s so wee and fragile I’d be afraid I’d break her if I held her hand, much less lay atop her in bed.”
The fair skin of his mother’s cheeks darkened. “Coll. For—”
“Or the other one, Rebecca Sharpe? I actually danced with her at some soiree or other. Did ye know that? And she spent a good twenty minutes chatting about the weather. Ye ken how many words it takes me to describe London weather? One damned word: mild.”
The countess drew in a breath through her nose. “Then perhaps you could give me some indication of what sort of woman interests you, my son. I am only trying to he—”
“Dunnae ye dare say ye’re helping me,” he cut in, scowling. “I’d nae be here if not for ye getting our da to sign that bloody agreement.”
She shut her eyes for just a moment. “All the same, my dear,” she went on, opening them again, “seventeen years ago your father and I both signed an agreement that you three boys would wed English ladies before your sister married, or you would lose all of my monetary support of Aldriss. Your brothers have found ladies. And love, I might add. You—”
“First of all, ye didnae say ‘ladies’ in yer paper.”
“I most certainly did.”
“Nae. Ye didnae. I’ve read it a hundred times, màthair, and it says, ‘Englishwomen.’” As he spoke, he hit on it: the way to confound this confounding woman, at least for long enough for him to find a suitable wife on his own. “And if ye must know, I’ve found myself an Englishwoman.”
Her deep green eyes narrowed just a touch. “You found an Englishwoman sometime between the theater last night and breakfast this morning?”
“Aye, I did. I’m off to see her now.” He swung Nuckelavee around to face the street.
“And does this mysterious woman have a name, then?” she asked, skepticism in every line of her body.
“She does. Mrs. Persephone Jones. She’s a widow. And I’m her protector, until I make her my wife.”
Kicking his heels into the black’s ribs, he headed into the street at a fast trot. Ha. Aden might claim that Coll had a far greater chance of winning an actual brawl over a verbal one, but he didn’t have to be a damned debater to know he’d scored a blow just then. Let her stew on that for a while.
It only took a few minutes to reach Hyde Park, and he reluctantly bypassed Rotten Row for the more civilized pathways deeper in the park. Nuckelavee pulled hard on the reins, clearly wanting to stretch his legs, but Coll held him back to a staid and hopefully unthreatening walk. As Aden had said, trampling lasses and wee dogs wouldn’t win him a bride.
Neither would his continued insistence on wearing a kilt to traverse civilized Mayfair, he imagined, but there were some things a man had to insist on if he wanted to keep that title. And this man wore a damned kilt. If he gave that up, next they’d all be telling him he talked funny.
A barouche approached up the path toward him, and he pulled Nuckelavee to one side. “Good morning, ladies,” he said, inclining his head, as he’d decided not to wear a hat.
“My lord,” the tall blonde one said, dipping her parasol. What was her name? Petunia or some other flower, as he recalled. Half the women in London seemed to be named after flora, though, so that didn’t narrow it down by much.
The smaller one sitting beside her blushed bright red. “Lord Glendarril.”
He turned to stay even with the barouche as the driver continued along the path at a walk. “I believe we met at the Gaines ball, did we nae?” he asked.
“Yes. And the Spenfield ball,” the wee one returned.
He remembered the Spenfield ball, for damned certain. Half of Mayfair’s men had been invited with only a handful of lasses, all so Mrs. Spenfield could find husbands for her five daughters. The desserts had been delicious, but he’d felt like a trapped bull the entire evening. “Aye. The Spenfield ball. I didnae even win the horse they were raffling off.”
The tall blonde one gave a wail and collapsed, her head in her hands.
“What the devil did I say?”
The small one ignored him. “Don’t fret, Polymnia,” she said, putting her arm around the weeping one’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t want to marry him, anyway.”
Polymnia. That was her name. Polymnia Spenfield. Damn it all. “I only meant I put my name in the bowl for the horse, and it wasnae drawn,” he said, scowling. “I didnae insult her.”
“You remembered the drawing rather than Polymnia,” the other lass accused. “We must return home, Robert. Good day, Lord Glendarril.”
The driver nodded the back of his head, turning the coach toward the boundary of the park. Coll pulled up Nuckelavee and watched them go. “Did ye hear that, Nuckelavee?” he muttered, patting the horse on the neck. “I recalled the drawing but nae the lass, and that’s an insult.”
The big black tossed his head, just in time for a trio of young ladies strolling past to squeak and dodge out of the way in a tangle of muslin and bonnets.
“Begging yer pardon, lasses. He means ye nae harm.”
“He’s a monster! You shouldn’t be allowed to ride him in the park with civilized persons.”
Coll pulled in a breath. “Aye. Ye’re correct about that.”
Turning the stallion, he headed east. His mother wanted him to wed one of these damned women, when he couldn’t even manage two sentences of conversation with any of them without fighting the urge to lift his kilt and show them his Highlander arse. Hothouse flowers. That’s what his father had said they would be, and evidently Niall and Aden had found the only decent two in all of London.
Mentally, he went down the list of marriageable ladies to whom he’d been introduced, hoping for a stir of interest—or anything but deep dread. He’d met some fair ones, aye, but not one with whom he cared to awaken every morning for the rest of his life.
He’d arrived in London and insulted Amelia-Rose on his first night here. Even if the other lasses hadn’t been aware of the circumstances, they knew that his mother had arranged for him to wed Miss Baxter when he’d never even set eyes on the lass, and that he’d been angry—not at Amy, but at his mother, and at himself. So Amy had gone to Niall, thank God, but he’d been left with the reputation for being … well, who he was at his worst, he supposed.
It was nothing he didn’t deserve, but it made finding a bride even more difficult than it would have been under other circumstances. If he took fondness and affection out of the equation, then any of the lasses would do. But even with the noose tightening around his neck, he wasn’t quite ready to close his eyes and point at one of them. Not yet.
“We’d best go back,” he said to Nuckelavee, and looked up to find himself in front of the Saint Genesius Theatre. “Damn me,” he mused, and swung down to the ground. He would go back to Hyde Park. Later.
“Smythe! Send a footman to my office in five minutes!”
“Yes, my lady. Is something am—”
Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert slammed shut her office door before the butler could finish his query. An actress. Oh, this was not going to happen. Using a selection of some of the finer profanity she’d learned during her time spent up in the Scottish Highlands, she sat in the chair behind her late father’s massive mahogany desk and pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer.
Once she dipped her pen in the inkwell, she brought the fine tip down against the paper … and stopped. Oh, for heaven’s sake. “Smythe!”
The office door opened quickly enough that the butler had to have been standing directly on the other side. “My lady?”
“Which of my sons is home?”
“The two younger ones, my lady. Master Aden arrived not fifteen minutes ago, and Master Niall hasn’t yet risen.”
Which one did she want? Aden would be more alert, but he was also much less forthcoming and cooperative than her youngest son. “Fetch me Niall, if you please. And Eloise.”
Sketching a quick bow, the butler practically ran out the door. She couldn’t blame him; as stoic and steady as he’d been over the dozen years since she’d hired him, the last eight weeks had been nothing if not unsettling. Her trio of sons had upended not just Oswell House, but all of Mayfair. And even with the theft of a marquis’s coach, his kidnapping, an elopement to Scotland, a brawl at Boodle’s that had gotten Aden banned from every gentlemen’s club in London, and Coll running naked up Grosvenor Square in the middle of the morning not four days ago, her oldest son had just presented her with the most outrageous situation yet.
And to think that, before they’d arrived in London, she’d believed the infrequent letters from her sons to Eloise had given her enough information to choose a woman who would suit Coll. Yes, Amy had suited Niall, so she hadn’t been so very far off the mark, but then again, if Coll had his mind set on Persephone Jones, then that did a rather fine job of telling her that she didn’t know him at all. And that troubled her. More than troubled her.
“Mama?” Eloise practically skidded into the room. She still wore her night-rail, her dark hair in a long, loose tail that made her look even younger than her eighteen years.
“I’m sorry to have awakened you, my dear,” Francesca said, indicating one of the chairs at the front of the desk. “But we have a disaster to hand.”
“If ye’re announcing a disaster, we’re done for,” her next oldest, twenty-four-year-old Niall drawled, appearing in the doorway.
Bare-chested and barefoot, her mahogany-haired son was naked but for the kilt knotted about his waist. At least he’d bothered to put on the kilt; being newly married had evidently civilized him a touch. “And how is Amy this morning?” she asked, putting aside her impatience for a moment. This entire enterprise had been about reuniting her with her sons. Whatever Coll’s plans, she couldn’t afford to ruin what they’d all been working so hard to regain.
“Last I saw her, she was still trembling beneath the bedsheets, scared by the sight of Smythe bursting into the room while we were both sound asleep. What’s amiss? Has Coll disappeared again?”
“No, this time your brother managed to return to Oswell House after fleeing the theater,” she returned.
“That’s someaught, then. I told ye nae to ambush him with lasses again. At least he didnae insult any of them this time.”
Yes, perhaps she’d been overly confident that her oldest—a viscount, for heaven’s sake—would have refrained from creating yet more gossip by fleeing her theater box for the second time since the men’s arrival in London. “His behavior last night, though reprehensible, is not the issue.”
Niall dropped into the chair beside his sister. “Aye? What is it, then? The archbishop didnae deny Aden a special marriage license, did he? Because that wouldnae sit well with Aden.”
“Hush, if you please, Niall.”
From her son’s expression, his maddening line of inquiry hadn’t been entirely innocent. They’d begun this visit trying to aggravate her, and given that seventeen years had passed since she’d last set eyes on them, she couldn’t blame them for that. But she’d been trying to make amends for lost time. And perhaps eventually, they would realize that there was more to the story than what their father had told them. But for now, she would work with what she had to hand.
She took a breath. “Coll went riding off just now, after he announced that he’d found an Englishwoman to wed.”
Niall blinked. “He did?”
Ah, so his brothers weren’t even aware. That meant something—and more than likely, it was nothing good. “Yes, he did. This, after an argument over whether my agreement with Angus stated that you three were to wed English ladies or Englishwomen.”
“Englishwomen,” he responded promptly. “But if he found a lass, then—”
“He’s found an actress,” Francesca stated, the word distasteful on her tongue. “He means to marry her. Of course, he also announced that he’s presently serving as her protector, so no doubt by noon everyone in London will know that my oldest son intends to wed a woman he is presently … keeping.”
Eloise put both hands over her mouth. “He wouldn’t,” she breathed. “My wedding is in four weeks, Mama!”
“I recall that, my dear. Which is why I am writing your father to make him aware that Coll is on the verge of casting his lineage into the dustbin. Whatever Angus thinks of the Sassenachs in general, he has never been lacking in pride. And Persephone Jones is not going to become a member of the MacTaggert family.”
Her daughter lowered her hands, then raised them again. “Persephone Jones? She’s … Everyone knows who she is. We can’t even pretend that Coll didn’t know she was an actress.”
Niall tilted his head, his nearly colorless green eyes twins to his younger sister’s. “Even I ken who Persephone Jones is. She was Juliet at the theater the night Coll stomped off and left Amy to me—and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”
Francesca opened her mouth to point out that Coll had made quite a mess that evening at Drury Lane Theatre—and that he’d obviously begun another mess at the Saint Genesius last night—but she stopped herself. For Niall, that night at Romeo and Juliet had quite possibly been the most significant in his twenty-four years, because that was where he’d met Amelia-Rose Baxter. In retrospect, Francesca should have realized that introducing Coll to young, eligible ladies at the theater was a blasted mistake—one she’d repeated last night, to disastrous results.
“Perhaps my agreement with your father didn’t state that you three were to marry English ladies, but that was the intent,” she said instead, turning the conversation back to the problem at hand. “I wanted a way to see my sons back in my life. If Coll does as he has threatened and marries someone so far below his station—and not even simply a commoner, but such an unacceptable female—he will be shunned by Society. The MacTaggert name will be whispered and laughed at behind fans. None of us will be welcomed into the homes of our peers.”
Niall shrugged. “They’re nae our peers. They’re yours. I dunnae think Coll cares to be welcomed into most Sassenach houses, anyway.”
“I do,” Eloise said. “And so does Amy. And Miranda. It’s not just you three and the Highlands any longer, Niall.”
The youngest MacTaggert male’s expression slowly shifted from one of amusement to one of concern. “Amy doesnae like people looking askance at her.”
“It would be one thing if he loved her,” Eloise pursued, “but I’ve never even heard him mention her name. And with the way he keeps leaving the theater as soon as the play begins, I don’t think he’s ever seen Persephone Jones in a performance. He’s only trying to make trouble.”
If this was simply bluster, Coll’s last bellow of defiance before he chose someone acceptable—well, that could be managed. But Francesca had overheard several conversations between the brothers, and she knew the original plan for each of them had been to find some empty-headed thing, wed her, bed her, and then leave her behind in England in favor of Scotland. If that remained Coll’s plan, then she supposed it wouldn’t matter to him who he married, because he wouldn’t be in London to face any of the social consequences.
“I hope you and brothers know, Niall,” she said slowly, “that I will move heaven and earth to see you happy. At the same time, I am the daughter of the ninth and last Viscount Hornford, a very well-respected man from a very well-respected family. I am a MacTaggert, and a proud one, but I am also an Oswell. This … No. It cannot happen.” She lifted the pen again. “And that is why I am writing your father to inform him of Coll’s intentions.”
Eloise gasped. “You’re writing Father?”
“I must. He is free to enjoy his brawls and drinking and … whatever carousing he’s been up to. He may choose to continue the pretense that he is presently on his deathbed due to the shock of your engagement, Eloise. But whatever he wishes to pretend, this will not sit well with him.”
Niall’s expression deepened into a scowl. “Nae, it willnae. It may even come to blows. But if ye think this’ll stir him from the Highlands, màthair, I’d suggest ye nae hold yer breath.”
“I stopped holding my breath a very long time ago where Angus MacTaggert is concerned, my darling. And I will place more hope in you and Aden being able to reason with Coll than I will in your father doing anything the least bit reasonable and responsible. But as a mother, and an Oswell, and a MacTaggert, I must do whatever I’m able. And that includes writing a letter to Angus.”
“Reasoning and Coll arenae close friends when he’s got his back up,” Niall commented.
Francesca didn’t often admit that she didn’t know what to do. This, in fact, might be the first time in seventeen years that she’d done so. If Coll was serious about that woman, she needed more reinforcements than the formidable MacTaggert brothers—the remaining two of them, anyway—could provide. Even if the reinforcements consisted of Angus MacTaggert, Lord Glendarril. Her husband.