How to Meet Your Match on the Moors (Lady’s Guide to Scotsmen #2)

Chapter 1

Night saturated the city of Edinburgh. Though it was late spring, the air was chilled by a grasping winter unwilling to retreat. Few people were out now—only the desperate and the dangerous.

One such figure strode over the mist-slicked stones on his way to somewhere only he knew.

Once or twice, a shadow slipped out from a doorway or a close between buildings and began to follow him.

But the huge man simply paused, his footsteps stilling, his right shoulder rolling like a prizefighter’s.

He didn’t even look behind him. Each time, the pursuer slinked back and away.

The shadows working the night were predators. But this man was not prey.

The man continued on his path until he came to a particularly narrow close.

Turning down it, he stepped carefully, his broad shoulders grazing the walls on either side even though he moved almost sideways.

The squeak of rats echoed off the building walls, irked that anything entered their domain, yet wise enough to disappear before the thundering gait of this larger creature.

The man reached a door and knocked. It cracked open. The clink of a few coins soon opened it wider. The visitor passed into the building, pulling the door shut behind him. This was one of the city’s many gambling hells.

“Where’s James McGregor?” the stranger asked.

* * * *

A few floors above, the sought-after McGregor took a swig of his drink and glanced at his cards, willing them to be different than what he’d been dealt.

Anyone looking at him would see the faint sheen of sweat across his brow, and the raised color in his face.

He had the hunted look of the gambler who knows he has overstretched, and yet hopes against hope that he has one last, lucky turn to change his fate and restore his fortunes.

The cards had not changed, nor had his luck.

“Fold,” he announced in disgust. He stood up, swaying a bit. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I must attend to a necessity.”

Deep in the game, the others scarcely responded.

McGregor stumbled into the hallway, where he straightened up immediately, casting off his seeming drunkenness. He was so engrossed in planning his return to the card game that he didn’t notice the gigantic shadow until the stranger stepped into his path.

“McGregor. You’ve not responded to my queries.”

Identified and caught all at once, McGregor stared at the figure in shock, then dismay.

The dingy hall was lit only by a candle guttering behind the foxed glass panel of a lamp.

It showed little more than a coppery murk upon the other man.

Perhaps he preferred it that way, if only to hide his ravaged face.

Some terrible accident could have caused the disfigurement, the scarring and the puckered skin that pulled his right eye into a permanent glare. The same wound also tugged the right side of his mouth into a scowl.

But it was no mere accident that had altered his appearance.

It was a war. The man had served in the British Army during the war against Napoleon, as had so many other Scotsmen.

He had returned alive, but not whole—at least, according to rumor.

Yes, he had all his limbs, which was something, considering how many soldiers couldn’t say the same.

But, as the stories went, he’d gotten too close to an exploding shell, and survived only through pure chance.

“Oh, Christ. It’s you.” It wasn’t surprising that McGregor was nervous, for he now spoke to the man who held the largest and oldest of his debts. Struan MacInnes.

His luck was getting worse and worse. If only the damned soldier had died, like so many others, this uncomfortable debt might have been lost or in some way discreetly wiped from the ledger…

whether literally or figuratively. It was really most inconvenient that the scarred man continued to breathe, especially when no one would miss him much.

For he was unmarried, from the Highlands, and of no significance in terms of family name, whereas James McGregor—a husband and a father—was well respected in the city.

He rarely walked down the street without greeting somebody he knew!

And yet. Here he was, in thrall to a man who was just this side of dead. And there was also the incontrovertible fact that McGregor still did not have the money to pay him back.

“I expected your response some time ago,” the tall man said, his voice gravelly as a stream bed.

“Ah, I’ve been…busy,” McGregor said, in a way that was meant to convey a carelessness, but he couldn’t hide a degree of servile fawning.

Such was often the case when a man owed a great deal to the one he was speaking to.

“I heard you were in Edinburgh. I didn’t wish to bother you while you were getting your bearings, after… well, you know.”

“I’m touched by your deep consideration for my comfort,” the scarred man replied.

His warped expression meant that nearly anything he said had a tendency to seem sarcastic.

But this time there was no mistaking his sentiment.

He went on. “I trust that you used the lengthy delay in my return to gather all the money required to repay the principal and interest from the loan I extended you before I left.”

McGregor glanced down the hall, as if help would appear. It did not. “Well, sir, as to that… I had every expectation of giving you the full payment at the earliest opportunity. But I am, er, at present in a rather awkward place, and I cannot readily lay my hands on the funds required.”

The scarred man glanced down at an open notebook in his hand. He tapped one line in particular and looked up at McGregor. He said nothing, allowing the uncomfortable silence to stretch on.

At last McGregor could no longer stand it. He said, “I beg you for some indulgence, just a little more time! Or if you prefer, I can pay a smaller amount shortly, and then gather the rest as soon as I may.”

“Six and half years.” The scarred man tapped a column of the ledger, which held a listing of dates.

“I made this loan to you six and half years ago, and you have the audacity to avoid me and tell me you have nothing? By the quality of your clothing and your boots, to say nothing of the jewels you’re wearing, I find it difficult to believe you’re destitute. ”

“I never claimed such,” McGregor protested.

“You understand how important it is to appear respectable. I would not defame my wife or daughters by looking like a pauper! And of course I must pay to maintain their needs as well, you know. My daughter is expecting to make a great match soon, and the expenses related to that endeavor are considerable. A man would do anything for his family, anything at all.”

“Anything. At. All,” the scarred man repeated with an ominous inflection.

“So this loan that I made you…you are telling me that you are spending it on your family rather than yourself. Excepting, of course, the fine clothes I see you in. And, of course, other incidentals from a friendly game of cards, am I correct?”

“Er, yes indeed, sir!” the man said, grasping the rope that he had been thrown—perhaps with too much eagerness, considering he did not know where the other end of the rope was leading.

“I have every hope that my daughter will make a splendid marriage, and that of course will elevate my own situation.”

“But you said daughters. Won’t you spend just as much on the necessities for the next girl’s season? And the one after that? When is it all to end?”

“Well, who can say with certainty? You know how the marriage mart is.”

“I do not.”

McGregor was not an empathetic man, but he did have a certain elemental awareness of others’ moods, particularly when it came to matters of money. Now he sensed the tiniest chink in the armor of the man in front of him.

This wounded soldier had been away for years and returned in a state not at all conducive to entering the marriage mart.

With that glimmering of insight, McGregor said, “I didn’t mean to imply you would be caught up in that petty world.

Not all men wish to marry. Some men have no interest in the life of a husband or father. Some men are meant to be bachelors.”

“Some men are made so.”

The words could be taken for an agreement, but McGregor sensed something else. The scarred man was acknowledging that his choice had been made for him by a shell on some battlefield. If things had been different, he would have waded into the waters of polite society in search of a wife.

Then McGregor’s desperately spinning brain made a connection, two gears clicking together at just the right moment, offering him an option so wild and unexpected that it made him suck in a startled breath.

If he could sell this notion, if he could persuade the scarred man to consider an alternative form of payment…well, that would be an extremely generous payout on an extremely daring wager.

The gambler in him seized the reins. “I did not say so yet, sir, but I wish to convey my sincere appreciation for your service abroad. Not all men are cut out for the risk, not to mention those like me who are too old. But your service and sacrifice is a mark of bravery. I can’t say how much of a blessing for our nation it is that you’ve come back alive and well! ”

The scarred man gave him a strange look. “I don’t see what my wartime service has to do with the payment of your debt.”

“Well, sir, I wouldn’t venture to even suggest this idea if I didn’t respect your character and strength of will. You have a fine reputation, and come from a most excellent family. Don’t forget that I knew your father, and counted him a friend!”

This statement caused a new and uncertain stillness in the scarred man. “Go on.”

“I perceive that your recent misfortune with regard to your appearance may—most unfairly!—prevent you from pursuing what you would otherwise already be seeking out.”

“What am I seeking out?”

“Why, a wife!”

The scarred man pulled back a fraction, obviously not expecting that.

McGregor went on, more eagerly. “As a father concerned for his daughter’s happiness, I can’t imagine a more suitable match than to you, sir.”

“I thought your eldest daughter was already expecting to make a brilliant match.” The sarcasm was back again.

“Oh, no, sir. Not my eldest, who is a complete disappointment to me. And the youngest of the house is in truth a stepdaughter, and it is for her we have the great hope which I have mentioned. But her mother, my wife, would surely have something to say about any match made without her knowledge and approval! I had, in fact, pictured my second daughter for you. Her name is Elspeth, and everyone agrees that she is as pretty as a picture.”

“They always are,” the scarred man noted. “Though I am in no position to render judgment on one’s appearance. So, your second daughter. What’s wrong with her?”

“Wrong with her? Nothing! She’s twenty years old, accomplished in matters of feminine and domestic pursuits, and has a most agreeable nature.”

“Then why are you so eager to be rid of her?”

“Well, of course I wouldn’t be, except that this opportunity arose.”

“You speak as if I initiated the proposal. And yet I have never met, seen, or indeed known about your fair daughter’s existence until this moment.”

“What other prospects have you got?” McGregor said with a certain cruel edge. “Are you already married? Engaged? Courting?”

The scarred man’s expression grew cold. “None of those things.”

“Well then, what would your objection be? I assure you there is nothing to complain about when it comes to Elspeth’s appearance or manner. I think that it would be an even exchange.”

“You would pay your debt with your daughter?”

“Well, I would not put it in so direct a way,” McGregor demurred. “Rather, I would hope that the joy to be found in your union would result in the debt being considered totally dissolved. We need not be mercenary about this.”

“Oh, no. We wouldn’t wish to be mercenary,” the scarred man said. His eyes glittered in the candlelight.

McGregor smiled. “All I ask, sir, is that you consider the possibility. If you like, I could arrange a meeting between you and—”

“No. There will be no meeting.”

While the words sounded like a rejection, there was a shred of something in the scarred man’s voice. Hope.

McGregor knew that his fish was hooked. He could now play his catch with skillful tugs at the line.

“Ah? Too direct. Too quick? If not a meeting, then I could make it so that you could see her at some public function, or along a street one day. You would not have to be introduced or even be noticed. But surely a man wishes to know what he is buying.”

“I am not in the habit of buying people.”

“Of course not, sir,” he said soothingly. “A figure of speech! But once you see Elspeth—my sweet, dear, darling Elspeth—you’ll understand that I’m offering a most fair bargain. Think about it, sir. Come by the house and see if you like her. In any case, contact me when you have made a decision.”

And with those words, McGregor turned and walked away, back to the brightness and the relative safety of the card room. There was restored confidence in his step. Fate had once again intervened to save him from ruin. The cards would fall kindly now!

Yes, let his debt-holder take his daughter off his hands. It was the perfect solution for him. Whether it would be an acceptable solution to either the husband or the wife involved, he did not care in the least.