Chapter 4
Stephen let himself into his flat, shrugged out of his overcoat, then tossed it and his keys onto the table in the entryway.
He glanced at it and for some reason the sight brought him up short.
It was an eighteenth-century card table sporting extensive inlay that featured none other than Czar Peter himself.
It wasn’t that which had startled him, it was that he had no idea where it had come from or when it had arrived.
His grandmother had no doubt deposited it in his entryway.
For all he knew, she had given him an extensive history of it at some point, but he imagined he had probably been too distracted by whatever paper he’d been working on at the time to pay attention.
He would have to ask the details when next he was in London to have tea at her house.
He bypassed the kitchen and made his way into his study and flicked on a lamp. He started a fire, then sat down in a ridiculously comfortable chair and heaved an enormous sigh of relief.
And then he choked.
But that was probably because he had just noticed the three men standing on the other side of the hearth in a neat little row.
He didn’t bother reaching for any of Patrick MacLeod’s defense training. It was obvious to him by not only their somewhat vintage dress but their slight transparency that his visitors were not exactly of this world.
He regained his composure and bought himself a bit of time by studying his companions.
He wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t seen them before at Artane, but since he tended to avoid the paranormal, he couldn’t have said for certain.
The only thing he was sure of was that none of the three had ever jumped out of an alcove and yelled “boo” at him.
He realized with a start that he was starting to babble a bit, but really, who could blame him? He’d already been thoroughly knocked to his knees by an afternoon spent sitting next to Miss Peaches Alexander. Ghosts were the icing on the bun, as it were.
The man—er, ghost, rather—closest to the fire was a Highlander with a very big sword.
Stephen felt fairly confident in making that assessment given that he’d spent the previous weekend fighting off just such a lad up north.
Tartans hadn’t had a set pattern or color until the eighteenth century—he congratulated himself on being able to produce that bit of trivia under such duress—so identifying that hoary-headed warrior by tartan alone was impossible.
Fortunately for his own feeble powers of observation, there was an enormous MacLeod clan badge on the man’s cap. Identification successful.
The man next to him was wearing the crest of the clan McKinnon on his cap as well as what Stephen recognized as the current-day plaid associated with that clan.
He was ruddy-haired, ruddy-complected, and looked as if he were currently seeing red.
Stephen wondered absently what he’d done to annoy the man—er, ghost, again, rather.
He wondered if he should stand up and offer a bow.
He considered that a bit longer as he looked at the third of the little group.
Obviously of Elizabethan influence judging by his trousers and the enormous ruff around his neck.
The ghost twitched his cloak back over his shoulders, which left Stephen blinking a little at the tabard the ghost wore: a black lion rampant with an aqua eye.
Part of his family crest, as it happened.
The man also looked a fair bit like what Stephen’s father had looked like in his youth, rather more like Gideon, his brother, than he himself.
The de Piaget ghost cleared his throat in irritation.
Stephen pushed himself out of his chair, looked at the three, then made them a low bow.
“Stephen, Viscount Haulton and Baron Etham, at your service,” he said politely.
The Elizabeth ghost looked at his companions and raised an eyebrow. “Me nevvy, don’t you know. Look at them pretty manners. ’Tis in the blood.”
The Scots didn’t offer opinions.
Stephen cleared his throat politely. “If I could offer you seats, my lords—”
“No need, lad,” said the ghost on the left who by his carriage showed himself to have no doubt been an important member of the clan MacLeod at some point. “We come with our own.”
Stephen imagined they did. He waited until they’d conjured up chairs to suit themselves and plucked tankards of ale out of thin air before he dared resume his own seat. He reached for something innocuous to say.
“Isn’t it a little late for Christmas ghosts?” he managed.
The de Piaget ghost dressed in his Elizabethan finery harrumphed. “Ye know, young Stephen, that ’twas me nocturnal visit to young Charles that gave him the idea for his tale full of do-gooding specters, but that isn’t why we’re here.”
Stephen didn’t dare speculate on why they were there.
It was one thing to jump a little at ghosts lingering in his father’s passageways, then suppress the urge to curse at their giggles; it was another thing entirely to host a trio of apparently very opinionated souls at his own hearth and attempt intelligent conversation.
On his part, of course, not theirs. They didn’t seem to be at all troubled by him.
The red-haired ghost sitting in the middle of the guests frowned at the Highlander on his right.
“Ye know, Ambrose, I begin to wonder why we waste our time with these lads south of the border. Look at this one sitting there with his mouth gaping open. There’s plenty of work to do on the proper side of the wall, I say. That young Derrick Cameron, perhaps—”
“We’ll see to that in good time,” the Macleod assured him. “This lad first, however. Perhaps introductions before we discuss business.”
Stephen found himself pinned to the spot by a piercing stare.
“I am Ambrose MacLeod,” the shade announced, “laird of the clan MacLeod during the glorious flowering of Elizabethan times. These are my compatriots, Hugh McKinnon and Fulbert de Piaget.”
“Charmed,” Stephen managed, nodding at the other Highlander and the Englishman who were helping themselves to what he could only assume was ale.
“And now to our business,” Ambrose MacLeod said seriously.
Stephen remained silent. He was not a creator of fiction, so he couldn’t imagine the trio facing him had come to inspire him to greater literary heights as they apparently had a certain penner of Victorian-era tales.
He had to admit he was suddenly less than eager to find out, however, just why they had selected his study to haunt.
Especially given that one of them was an ancestor. Of sorts.
Fulbert de Piaget smoothed his hand down over his tabard, then fluffed the lace ruff at his neck before he cleared his throat. “Now, you being me brother’s son—”
“Son?” Stephen interrupted.
“Very well, his son’s son’s son’s—” Fulbert frowned for a moment or two, then began to count on his fingers.
“His son’s son’s son’s—” He glared at Stephen.
“Suffice it to say, yer me nevvy a time or two removed. I am the second son of my father, as it happens, and yer uncle. And as such, I feel a certain sense of responsibility for yer happiness.”
Stephen blinked, then gaped.
Hugh McKinnon shot Ambrose MacLeod a knowing look, but said nothing. Stephen cleared his throat after a dodgy moment or two when he thought he might have to go look for a drink.
“I’m happy just as I am,” he protested.
“But unwed,” Laird MacLeod said pointedly. “We’re here to remedy that.”
“I’m here to remedy that,” Fulbert said pointedly.
The McKinnon snorted. “What do either of ye know about this family? If ye’ll remember, I was the one who arranged things the other two times.”
Stephen watched the discussion grow rather warm and realized at some point that he was either losing his mind or that blow to his nose delivered by Patrick MacLeod had knocked something loose inside his head because he was currently watching two ghosts of a rather earlier-than-modern vintage go at each other, and he found all he could do was sit there and gape at them.
“I say,” he protested at one point when swords were drawn.
He was ignored.
Apparently Fulbert and the McKinnon had known each other for quite some time.
Their insults were as finely honed as their swords though thankfully just as unable to draw blood.
Stephen watched them fight in his den, using furniture and tables to launch themselves off and duck behind, and was very thankful they were ghosts.
Until what Fulbert de Piaget said had sunk in.
“Marriage?” he said incredulously.
Fulbert and Hugh stopped long enough to look at him. Fulbert pursed his lips in disgust.
“Of course, marriage. Why else would we be here?”
“Why, indeed,” Stephen managed. He watched them turn back to their sport—and he used that term loosely—then realized the MacLeod wasn’t joining in the fray. He rose unsteadily and went to put his backside to the fire where he could speak to the clan’s chief privately. “Marriage?”
Ambrose MacLeod looked up at him from bright green eyes. “Well, aye, lad. It’s about time, don’t you think?”
Stephen didn’t want to think. He had been having subtle and not-so-subtle hints about his lack of wife and heirs tossed at him for ten years now.
And to be completely honest, he was getting tired of dating, tired of trying to please his enormously discriminating granny who was demanding not only a titled bride but one who came with the cold, hard stuff as well.
He had actually spent the previous summer looking at his life and thinking that perhaps it wasn’t as satisfying as it should have been.
It had occurred to him, much to his surprise, that he envied his younger brother his lovely wife and beautiful daughter.
And then he’d walked into Sedgwick Castle a pair of months earlier and laid his poor eyes on a woman who had, as they said across the Pond, knocked his socks off.