Chapter Two
“I’m afraid I’ve exhausted every path, Lord MacLennan. I cannot secure you credit from any of the London banks.”
Hamish clasped his hands together as the lawyer delivered the news. “Not even the Hart Bank, Mr. Stockton?”
“Especially not the Hart Bank. Mr. Hart has a keen understanding of business risk and is therefore very particular about whom he accepts as a client.”
Fucking Sassenachs.
The solicitor’s clear gray eyes glittered with disapproval, almost as if he’d heard the insult.
“Lord MacLennan, if you’re about to accuse Mr. Hart of harboring prejudice based on nationality, I’d counsel you to first consider the prejudice you harbor against the English. Such outmoded attitudes hamper a man’s ability to flourish in business.”
Pompous arse!
“I’m sure I can find another solicitor more easily than a creditor, Mr. Stockton,” Hamish said.
“You’re at liberty to try, Lord MacLennan.
But you must settle your account with us before attempting to engage the services of another.
Until you do, I cannot in all conscience recommend another firm to you—nor vice versa.
I only agreed to take you on as a client because your solicitor in Edinburgh, Mr. McSwain, confirmed that you had settled all your accounts to date.
You’ll find that lawyers are less inclined to take risks with their finances than bankers. ”
Hamish sighed. “But I cannae…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.
This venture was proving to be an utter disaster.
The funds expended in coming to London were only a worthwhile investment if he could, among the London bankers, secure credit that those situated in Edinburgh no longer extended.
But bankers had an annoying habit of talking to each other, even across the border between Scotland and England.
The MacLennan name, rather than serving as a key to unlock Society’s doors, instead served as a warning to creditors not wishing to take on an unacceptable degree of risk, and fathers not wishing to hand their daughters’ dowries over to a wastrel.
Unacceptable degree of risk. That was the phrase that almost every London banker had tossed at him.
He slumped back in his chair and sighed, letting the mask slip for a heartbeat.
Then he gritted his teeth, sat up, bringing his big body to its full height as much as he could, and leaned toward the older man.
Any other man, when faced with a sight such as he—a wild beast of a Highlander, built for savagery, his eyes flashing with determination and teeth ready to tear into the neck of his prey—would have crumpled.
But the little solicitor, with his quiet self-assurance and calm dignity, did more to break Hamish’s resolve than the most hardened clansman, bloody and mud spattered, readying himself for battle.
Clearly, battles were fought differently in the drawing rooms of London. Funds couldn’t be gained by standing half a head taller than a prospective creditor, and wives couldn’t be procured by tossing a woman over his shoulder and carrying her back to his lair.
What he wouldn’t give to return to the days of Medieval savagery, when life was simpler and a man could simply take what he wanted!
The solicitor regarded Hamish with an intelligence he couldn’t hope to match, able to see the desperate man beneath Hamish’s Highland brawn.
“Is there nothing I can do, Mr. Stockton?” Hamish said. “I’ve no wish to lose my home. Many souls depend on the survival of Glenblath. I cannae see them suffer as a result of my inability to remain solvent.”
Or rather, his forebears’ inability. But there was little point in wasting time blaming others. Like it or not, the burden of rectification lay upon him.
As if in acknowledgment of Hamish, at last, revealing his desperation, the solicitor smiled. He reached for the decanter on his desk, shook a measure into a beveled glass, and pushed it toward Hamish before pouring a second glass for himself. Hamish lifted his glass and took a sip.
“I applaud your honesty,” the solicitor said. “Most of my clients never reveal their true wishes. Instead, they ask for that which they believe will help to accomplish what they desire.”
Now he was talking in riddles—like all lawyers who issued salvo after salvo of incomprehensible phrases, often in Latin, which only their fellow lawyers could hope to understand. A ploy to perpetuate their businesses, given that their unsuspecting clients had no hope of understanding them.
Still, at least he kept a decent brandy.
“I think,” the solicitor said, setting his glass aside, “I might have a solution to your problem. Well, not a solution, but a respite.”
“Respite?”
The solicitor nodded. “It’s a little unconventional. You’d have to act quickly, but out of all my clients, I consider you the most worthy.”
Worthy? What the devil did he mean?
“Though Mr. McSwain gave me this list of your creditors,” the solicitor continued as he held up a piece of paper, a very long piece of paper, “he said that you’re an honest man whose financial situation is not of your doing.”
“Worthy of what, Mr. Stockton?” Hamish said.
“A little good fortune.”
“Are ye about to present me with a fortune?”
“Only a small fortune, to be acquired in a most unusual fashion.”
“Ye mean it comes with a condition attached,” Hamish said.
“Yes, but sadly that condition will be short-lived.”
For a moment, the solicitor’s expression slipped, revealing a flicker of sorrow.
“As will the benefactor,” he said, more quietly.
So that was it.
Hamish leaned back in his chair. “Ye have a dying client wishing to act as benefactor.”
“After a fashion,” Stockton replied.
“And the client wishes me to meet him to demonstrate my worth?”
The lawyer shook his head.
“I’ll do anything he wishes,” Hamish said.
“The client’s a young woman.”
“What does she want?” Hamish lifted the glass to his lips for another sip.
“You must marry her.”
Hamish caught his breath as he swallowed a mouthful of brandy. The liquid exploded on his tongue, sending fire through his throat, and he spasmed into a cough as he spluttered droplets onto the papers before him.
The solicitor raised his eyebrows. “I thought you’d be surprised. The marriage will need to take place within the next few days. I’ve already secured leave for a special license.”
Hamish wiped his mouth then set his glass aside. “So soon? If I’m to marry, I should at least get to know the lass.”
“That won’t be possible. My client’s gravely ill and isn’t expected to survive more than a week, at most.”
Sweet Lord Almighty! “Y-ye said she’s a young woman?”
The solicitor nodded, a grave expression in his eyes. “She’s been struck down with smallpox. Her father passed two days ago and the poor girl was too ill to attend the ceremony.”
“Then why…” Hamish made a random gesture in the air.
“She wants her fortune to pass to a better man than her cousin, who, under the terms of the entail, is the sole beneficiary. If she marries, her fortune passes to her husband.”
The solicitor paused, waiting for the obvious question. But Hamish didn’t have the heart to ask it.
“The fortune’s a little over one thousand,” he said.
“Not enough to repay all your debts, but it should clear those attracting the highest rates of interest, thereby easing the burden on your estate enough to enable you to clear the remainder of the debts over”—he eyed the papers in front of him—“over the next year. Quicker if you employ thrift.”
“It seems a little callous,” Hamish said.
“Your concern does you credit, Lord MacLennan. But the young woman asked me to find a suitable man and I presented your case to her.” Stockton raised his hand as Hamish leaned forward to respond.
“Naturally, I refrained from divulging your name in case you weren’t in agreement.
I merely told her that I’d found a young man with some debts in need of settling.
” He gave a wry smile. “In that respect, you’re in a similar predicament to her cousin.
However, his debts have been incurred through drinking, gaming and”—for the first time, the solicitor’s cheeks colored—“indulging in the baser amusements that London offers a young man who cares only for his own pleasure. You, Lord MacLennan, strike me as a man who, though he may indulge in pleasure himself, does not do so to the detriment of those who depend on him.”
Which was the lawyer’s way of saying, in his pompous, businesslike language, that he was expecting Hamish to spend the funds on his estate, whereas the woman’s cousin would piss, gamble, and fuck it away in London’s dens of iniquity.
“Very well,” Hamish said. “I’m ashamed to say my circumstances are such that I’m obliged to accept such an offer. But what if the young woman…”
What if she survives?
No—he couldn’t bring himself to ask such a question.
“Miss Lucas is already near death,” Stockton said, his voice almost a whisper.
“We may already be too late, but she’s determined to survive until her hand, and her fortune, is secured with another.
I understand that the prospect may be unsavory to you.
But rest assured that marrying Miss Lucas on her deathbed is the greatest service that any man can perform.
You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you granted a dying woman her final wish. ”
Miss Lucas.
Hearing her name on the lawyer’s lips brought the circumstances from behind the fog of supposition, to the stark forefront of reality.
The solicitor sighed. “Were she to survive, you’d be a fortunate man to have her for a wife. I would rather she did survive, but I’m instructed to act in a manner which anticipates that outcome not happening.”
Hamish paused, then nodded. “What do ye know of her?”
“Her name is Euphramia Mary Lucas.”
Euphramia…
Hamish played with the name in his mind, imagining how it might sound on his lips.
“She’s the only daughter of Dr. Lucas,” the solicitor continued. “An intelligent young woman with ambitions herself to become a doctor that were thwarted not only because of her sex but because of her father’s insistence that she restrict herself to the pursuits of a woman.”
“Yet she is near death?”
“Not even doctors are protected from the onset of disease, Lord MacLennan, particularly when they refuse to administer modern treatment.” The lawyer’s tone hardened.
“The poor girl tried to persuade her father to agree to them both taking this new smallpox vaccine. But Dr. Lucas refused. That refusal cost him his life, and will soon cost that of his daughter.”
Poor lass, to have her life curtailed by the man who believed he owned her! But it was a fate that many women shared. Hamish had seen the toll on his ma, whom his da had considered to be his rightful property—his to own, to sap her strength and spirit.
Perhaps, if Hamish agreed to marry Miss Lucas, he could take comfort in thwarting the ambitions of a man who believed he owned her. He would give her his name, then honor hers by praying for her each day so that her spirit might survive, even if her body did not.
“Very well, Mr. Stockton,” he said, at length. “I agree. Tell Miss Lucas that I offer my hand willingly and gratefully. I’ll present myself as soon as required—today, if necessary.”
The solicitor nodded his approval, then stood and extended his hand. Hamish took it and the older man held his hand in a surprisingly firm grip. Then he summoned a clerk to usher Hamish out of the building with a promise that he’d send a message to take him to his bride forthwith.
Not the most conventional of courtships, but Hamish had never wished to fritter away his soul and funds trotting about London wooing a brittle, haughty debutante.
And, by the time he returned to Glenblath, he’d be solvent—or at least, a little more solvent—and widowed, neither of which he’d expected when entered London.
But then, the winds of Fate never blew as a man expected.