Chapter 30 #2
Maybe he wouldn’t appear at all tonight. Maybe last time he just wanted to prove that he could, and now he’d leave her alone.
She couldn’t even tell herself that without laughing.
At the party, she noticed after a while that she seemed to be getting more than the usual amount of attention…the usual being none.
“Why is everyone looking at me? Is it the dress? Is it too revealing?”
“It’s the height of fashion,” Mairi said bluntly. “You look perfect.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’ll find out.”
Mairi stalked off, leaving Ellie standing by the side of the room. She dared not move, lest she draw attention to herself even more. Then Mairi was back.
“What did you find out?”
“Two things. First, Struan just arrived, with his men at arms.”
“Oh, no. What does he want from me? Wait, what’s the other thing you learned?”
“I don’t know precisely how it started, but people are talking about you. They’ve heard, somehow, that your marriage isn’t going well.”
“I didn’t tell anyone!”
“Someone guessed, maybe. You arrived in Edinburgh without him. And now he’s here, but you’re staying in different houses.”
“There are lots of ways to explain that.”
“But only a few of those ways are interesting to boring people who want to think the worst of others.”
“What am I to do about it?”
“Well, you could appear with him in public, and look happy about it,” Mairi suggested.
“He’s not the type to play along with a charade like that.
” Besides, Ellie wasn’t sure she could deal with being next to Struan and pretending that nothing was amiss.
She was so bad at acting, and he’d sense something was happening.
“Maybe I can persuade him to leave the house before anything gets worse. And I’ll say I have a headache and go upstairs and then Averill can just pretend I don’t exist. And… ”
“Oh, God. That’s Mr Malloch. It’s out of our hands now,” Mairi muttered.
“Who’s he?”
“The one in the garish pink coat. He fancies himself a major wit, though he was just talking to Father, which I’d think he’d think was beneath him. But now he’s got his eyes on Struan. He loves nothing more than humiliating his chosen victim in as public a way as possible.”
“I would think any hostess would strike him from the guest list,” said Ellie. “People stand for that sort of cruelty?”
“Are you joking? They adore it. It adds spice to the evening. I bet Averill invited him especially.”
Ellie watched in growing horror as the dandy began to stalk his prey through the wilds of the ballroom.
He had curly, dark blond hair and sported a severely trimmed goatee.
He greeted Struan and his companions civilly enough, but even she could see that the crowd was shifting around the small group. Like jackals awaiting the kill.
Malloch said loudly, “Since we have to wait for the happy announcement of one daughter, we must content ourselves with considering the success of another. You do consider your marriage to the older McGregor sister a success, don’t you?”
Struan looked like he wanted to throw Malloch across the room. The man named Calan Shaw interjected smoothly, “What an odd question, considering that both husband and wife are here in the same room. Is your wife in attendance, sir?”
“Alas, I am not so blessed yet,” the dandy replied with a smirk.
“Then my opinion of the ladies of Edinburgh has improved,” Calan responded, so calmly that it took the dandy a moment to realize what Calan just said.
Rather than seeing the parry as a warning to retreat, he viewed it as a further reason to dig in.
“To achieve my aim,” Malloch announced, “I must study previous victors. Tell me, Mr MacInnes. You are a married man, and thus have run the gauntlet of the marriage mart, and all the scrutiny of matrons and their daughters.” The dandy looked incredibly pleased with himself as he spoke to Struan.
He clearly heard some inkling of the reality of the situation, and knew that Struan had not spent one day in the drawing rooms of the Edinburgh matrons.
“If you will enlighten us, please explain how you settled upon a wife, when you surely had so many to choose from.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Struan, “I did not have many to choose from.” He paused. The silence of the room grew uncomfortable. Then he said, “The moment I saw Elspeth McGregor, she was the only conceivable choice.”
The words were technically true, and yet Elspeth winced. Conceivable, indeed.
“Is that so?” the dandy went on, oblivious to the murderous glances being sent by the other men of the company. In particular, Calan had a glint in his eye that Elspeth felt was more fitting in the eye of a wolf.
“It is,” Struan snapped.
“You are a man of great perception, then,” Mr Malloch said.
“Clearly you knew what qualities you were seeking in a wife, and stuck to your principles, even when wandering amid the garden that is all of Edinburgh’s marriageable beauties.
So tell us, sir. What is the prime quality that a man requires in a wife? ”
Struan looked directly at Elspeth when he spoke next, and she could not pretend to misunderstand his response, nor the very particular meaning it held for them.
“Frugality.”